Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery Part 4

"But how-"

"Oh, my late husband had some connections in the music business in those days. And of course your parents were musicians. Anyway, I do remember talking with your mother, with Mary. You see, she had just learned that a baby would be coming their way. You. I expect the adoption had been prearranged in some fashion. The girl ..." She faltered, glancing at Tom. "Do you know ...?"

"No, I don't."

"You know nothing about your natural mother?"

"Not really, no."

"You weren't curious?"

"Oh, of course. Very much, at times. But the women who raised me-Iain's sister-and her partner knew very little themselves. Or so I understand. Iain and Mary died, as perhaps you know-"

"Yes, in that awful plane crash."

"-the spring after they adopted me." Tom stared at the signatures. "If they knew any details about my natural parents, they decided, for some reason, to keep it to themselves. And, of course, as you get older, you don't think about it overmuch. Is there something ...?"

"Not really. I only recall your mother saying she and your father would be travelling to Liverpool for the adoption. I remember distinctly because my husband had some business to attend to on behalf of the family in that part of the north."

"Liverpool," Tom repeated thoughtfully. "I only know the adoption was a private arrangement of some nature."

"How mysterious!"

"Yes, I've thought that at times."

Marguerite glanced from the date of the Christmases' visit to Egges...o...b.. to Tom. "Then your birthday is this month. Your fortieth, yes?"

"On Monday, as it happens."

"Oh." And then in an altered tone, "Oh! Now I understand your hesitation to stay."

"Well, I expect my family has something planned for me. There's still a chance tomorrow ..."

Marguerite's brows arched sceptically. "If it had been your left ankle, perhaps, you might be able to drive but ..." She had left the rest unsaid.

Now, recalling his mind to the present, Tom heard Marguerite remark, "Roberto is working on a splendid new commission for Delix Fennis's sculpture garden in Cornwall. You know the one, of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. He popped by last month and commissioned one after seeing Roberto working on the sculpture that's in the Labyrinth."

"Sculpture?" Tom recalled no mention of such in the literature about the noted Egges...o...b.. Labyrinth.

"Installed last month," Marguerite explained. "A new feature."

"I believe Roberto works in marble, don't you, Roberto?" Oliver blew a plume of smoke into the air.

"I'm surprised you would know that." Dominic eyed Oliver with disdain.

"Bit quaint, isn't it?" Oliver ignored his cousin. "I thought it was all pickled sheep in vats of formaldehyde these days?"

"I'd very much like to visit your studio, too, while I'm here," Dominic told Roberto.

"If you feel you have the time," Marguerite murmured without enthusiasm.

Roberto added, "I most often work late at night."

"That's when I like to get the job done, too." Oliver smirked.

Roberto's nostrils flared as if he'd smelled something offensive. "Have you seen my work in the Labyrinth, Oliver?"

"I haven't been in that b.l.o.o.d.y thing in years. Seems like a lot of walking around in circles for no good reason."

"You really are a philistine." Dominic's mouth twisted.

"I insist, Oliver." Roberto spoke more forcefully.

"Why? What's the statue b.l.o.o.d.y of then?"

"BVM."

"What?"

"The Blessed Virgin."

"Oh, for Christ's sake." Oliver threw his cigar over the bal.u.s.trade. Tom's eyes followed the red glow in its arc, noting the apparently fastidious Gaunt move swiftly to remove the offending thing from the darkening lawn. "I haven't got time for that sort of b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Sorry, Vicar."

"No, Oliver," Marguerite cut in before Tom could respond. "You really must view Roberto's wonderful addition to the Labyrinth. You'll find it extremely compelling, I'm quite certain."

Oliver looked from the older woman to the younger man, his eyes narrowed to a black intensity. "I'll give it," he replied slowly, "some thought."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Tom studied the chimneypiece's timber overmantel, which he'd glimpsed in the late afternoon as he hobbled from the terrace-the whole day seemed to have been spent outdoors-to a loo tucked under a staircase in Egges...o...b..'s labyrinthine interior. Then, with the curtains drawn against the hot sun, the drawing room in cool shadow, the overmantel's elaborate carvings had seemed a squirming abstraction of light and shadow. Now, with evening's fall, with a chandelier switched on and the room aglow, the abstraction resolved into a phantasmagoria of roiling and terrified figures in macabre dance around an imperious skeleton like some Caesar of the underworld risen to destroy the world of the living. Orbless eyes mercilessly scanning the bleak landscape, one hand raising a scythe, the other preparing a sword, the figure trampled on tokens of earthly vanities-sceptres and crowns and coins.

"Not the most welcoming motif, is it?" Jane joined him where he was steadying himself against the back of a chair set at an angle to the fireplace, unlit on this warm summer evening.

"The Triumph of Death? No." Tom felt a laugh catch in his throat. "The Jacobeans had a taste for moral imagery, I seem to recall. Or perhaps Lord Fairhaven's ancestor was particularly keen on this sort of didactic moral ornament."

"I wonder if it's inherited," Jane murmured, though the chatter in the room masked any need for discretion. "I am fond of him, but Hector can be kind of a scold at times. He's involved with various traditional-values groups and the like."

"Oh?"

"And he's standing for Parliament if he wins the open primary, did you know? The MP stood down over some expenses scandal, so there's to be a by-election this ... October, I think. Hector's chair of the local Conservative a.s.sociation, so ..."

"Did he ever sit in the Lords?"

"Hector? For about two minutes. His father died quite young, but Hector inherited the t.i.tle about the time the Lords was being reorganised. So he lost his seat along with most of the hereditary peers. There's-what?-about ninety hereditary peers in the Lords these days? And six hundred life peers? Anyway, since hereditary peers may now stand for election and serve in the Commons, Hector's keen to get in. His grandfather and great-grandfather pushed their weight around in government years ago from the Lords." She smiled at him appraisingly. "I'll bet you've never voted Conservative in your life."

"I worked many years in an inner-city ministry so I think, Lady Kirkbride, that you've made a safe bet. And you?"

"Well, Father Christmas, I think ..." She surveyed the room. "I think you and I may be a party of two here. Promise not to tell my husband?"

"I won't." Tom's eyes stole once again to the overmantel.

"Egges...o...b.. is full of such carvings." Jane followed his glance. "When you're a little more mobile, you can take the tour. There's a Judgement of Solomon over the fireplace in the dining room-judging the quality of the fare maybe. I think Hector and Georgina's bedroom has the Virtues ... accompanied by the Vices. You're not laughing. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't sound it."

"I expect I'm feeling a bit mortal, spraining my ankle and all."

"Nothing to do with Egges...o...b.., then."

"What do you mean?"

"Egges...o...b.. can be a sort of gloomy pile in the wrong light. It's been used in films for effect, did you know?"

"Mrs. Prowse mentioned something about an Agatha Christie."

"And an American outfit hired the place for some sort of horror film-along the lines of Devon Chainsaw Ma.s.sacre. Can't remember the real t.i.tle. Hector held his nose and took the money. I wouldn't let my kids watch it-it was a bit disturbing. The shots of Egges...o...b.. Hall looming out of the murk made me shiver. I'm shivering now, and it's a warm evening! Perhaps"-Jane lowered her voice-"I'm having a ..."

"Frisson?"

"That's the word. Or perhaps the ghost of Egges...o...b.. is set to walk tonight. There is a full moon."

"Is there a stately home in England without a ghost?"

"Bridgemary, my father-in-law's home in Shropshire, seems to be ghost-free. As far as I know."

"And what does Egges...o...b..'s ghost do?"

"I'm not sure. You should ask Max. He loves all the lore of the place." Jane sighed. "Actually, I think Egges...o...b..'s ghost haunts the park, not the house. Something nasty happened on the grounds five hundred years ago. Anyway, I think ghosts are a crock."

"Me, too."

"Perhaps then the barometric pressure is rising ... or falling, or whatever it is. Marve was telling me when she and Roberto walked over from the dower house, they could see clouds ma.s.sing over the moor."

"I'm not sure I'm very susceptible to those sorts of atmospheres."

"More the sorts between people then."

"Possibly."

"You've noticed the fforde-Becketts don't play happy families very well."

"You did warn me." Tom's eye happened to catch Lucinda's at the moment. She was speaking with one of the guests-introduced to Tom at the airfield as Jimmy (James, Baron Pownall, in fact), the shortest of the Leaping Lords-but suddenly she turned her head and cast him a smile of such radiance, he could only respond with his own giddy version. Lucy excused herself to her interlocutor and moved to where Dominic was nursing a gin, his pale features lit by a lamp. Tom turned back to Jane, startled from his thoughts by her appraising glance.

"You're not feeling a bit mortal because you're coming to a certain significant birthday, by any chance?"

"Lady Fairhaven has been talking."

"She happened to mention it."

"I suppose certain birthdays give one pause for reflection. I count my blessings however, and they are many."

"Most of us are much more blessed today than they would have been when that thing was carved." Jane gestured to the overmantel. "When it was installed five centuries ago it must have terrified. People then literally believed in h.e.l.l. But now ..." Tom felt her shrewd glance. "Tom, you don't ...?"

"Believe in a literal h.e.l.l? Fire and brimstone? No. The Church views all that as outmoded, though there are some dissenters. 'Separation from G.o.d,' I tell my confirmands. But 'h.e.l.l' can be an apt metaphor, can't it? The h.e.l.lish things people have done to one another in war or to the world, to the environment. Or people dwelling in a sort of private h.e.l.l-living some lie, carrying around some corrupting secret. I expect we've all had a moment, a day, a week, a year-or more-in which we live in h.e.l.l, haven't we?" He turned his attention back to Jane. "I do apologise. I'm being morbid, for some reason."

She laughed. "I told you Egges...o...b.. had an atmosphere. Now you won't be able to sleep."

"Speaking of which." Tom scanned the room. "My child should be getting off to bed before very long. Where is she?"

"Don't worry. The Gaunts are wonderful with Max. I'm sure Mrs. Gaunt has already got her settled. You might," Jane responded as he frowned at his wrapped foot, "find it a bit of a climb to the nursery floor."

"No 'good night' for me then."

"They do grow up. If I phone Olivia now at Tullochbrae to say good night, she'll just groan and say, 'Oh, Mummy, really!' Look, what's this?" Jane gestured towards the door at the far end of the room through which Gaunt was pushing a trolley laden with half a dozen bottles and fresh gla.s.sware, the gentle tinkle of which pierced the low hubbub of conversation.

"What's this?" Hector's echo sounded sharply behind Tom. He and Georgina had entered the drawing room from the terrace at the same moment, Bonzo following.

Gaunt stopped the trolley by the fire screen and settled one of the wobbling bottles with a gloved hand.

"Lord Morborne's wishes, my lord," he replied, turning as Hector rounded the Hepplewhite sofa.

"Are these from the cellar?"

"No, my lord."

"Good. He can't have brought them from London. Champagne couldn't possibly have survived Oliver's ..."

"Oliver's what, Hector?" Jane asked as Hector's voice trailed off.

"Oh, nothing." Hector flicked his hand dismissively.

"Lord Morborne asked me to purchase these at the Pilgrims Inn yesterday afternoon," Gaunt explained.

Hector's lower lip protruded in a pout. "He's got a cheek. Do you know any of this, my dear?" He addressed his wife, who had twisted one of the bottles to examine the label.

"Nothing," she replied.

"I hope this isn't on my behalf ... or St. Nicholas's," Tom amended in a muttered aside to Jane. "Everyone has done so much already."