Christmas at Candleshoe (22 page)

‘American?’ Lord Scattergood is much interested. ‘And proposing to smuggle my paintings out of the country – eh? And there he is!’

They have rounded a bend. Before them, uncertainly visible in shadow, is the stationary figure of a man. Arthur has a momentary impression – which further puzzles him – that the man has his back to them and is addressing vacancy. But, if this is so, he immediately swings round. There is no doubt that he has a gun, and that they are covered by it.

‘Stop!’

Lord Scattergood, who is now much incensed, replies to this with a snort of indignation and stumps on. At his side, Mr Archdeacon has all the appearance of emitting a smokescreen to cover this advance. Arthur tries to get ahead of them, but has no success. His father, having got within a dozen paces of the waiting man, feels that the time has come to offer a few remarks. ‘You miserable rascal!’ he says. ‘Terrorizing a helpless old woman! I’ll have you know that the lady is my kinswoman, and moreover has the custody of some of my most valuable possessions. I respect her highly, you scoundrel; and if you think I’ll permit antics like yours on her property – why, you’re a very great donkey!’ Lord Scattergood, as he finishes this address, comes within arm’s length of the gangster and knocks his gun from his hand.

‘Say – aren’t you the Marquess?’ The gangster – he is a young man of dishevelled but polite appearance – asks this question in what, to Arthur, is patent bewilderment.

‘I am Lord Scattergood. But your business in the immediate future, you horrible ruffian, is going to be with the police.’

‘And you said something about Miss Candleshoe having valuable possessions of yours?’

‘My Titians, rascal – as you very well know.’

‘Paintings? Then that’s what they’re after!’

At this Arthur steps forward. ‘What’s that?’

‘The thieves sir – the folk I’ve been trying to lead off.’

‘I see.’ Arthur takes a keen look at the young man, stoops and picks up the fallen gun. ‘Loaded?’

‘No. We got it from one of them in a fight, but it wasn’t loaded. I brought it out and started doing what I could to get their attention. That was so that a boy from the house – a boy called Robin – could get past them, and bring help from the village. You see, Candleshoe is besieged. There’s quite a crowd of those crooks… Perhaps I ought to say that my name is Grant Feather.’

Lord Scattergood, who had listened to this with attention, turns to his librarian. ‘Archdeacon, what are we to make of this?’

‘Granted the given terms of our present situation, Marquess, the problem of the young man’s veracity would appear, for the time, to be unamenable to other than a purely empirical approach.’

‘Go ahead, but keep an eye open – what?’ And Lord Scattergood nods understandingly before turning back to the young man. ‘You been inside Candleshoe?’

‘Yes, sir. And my mother’s there right now.’

‘Seen my Titians – Lollia somebody, and an odd girl with a swan?’

‘I just don’t get that, Lord Scattergood. I saw those paintings at Benison today – or I suppose I ought to say yesterday afternoon.’

‘You saw copies of them. The originals have been st–’ Lord Scattergood checked himself at a warning cough from Mr Archdeacon. ‘The originals, for reasons into which I need not enter, have been for some time at Candleshoe. And now it appears that a pack of rascals are after them. You haven’t seen them – either hung up or stored away?’

‘No, sir – nor heard them mentioned either. But Candleshoe is quite a big place. And what you say does explain things. These people are much more likely to be after a couple of valuable paintings than a pirate hoard hidden in a secret chamber.’

‘A pirate hoard? Stuff and nonsense.’

‘That’s what Jay thinks it is.’

Arthur Spendlove interposes. ‘Jay? Who is he?’

‘A capable kid who lives with Miss Candleshoe. His name is Jay Ray.’

From the base of what is now a tall column of tobacco smoke Mr Archdeacon emits a sound of mild interest. ‘Ray? Surely there cannot be–’

‘Quite right, Archdeacon. No boy could be called Jay Ray. The idea’s absurd.’ And Lord Scattergood looked with renewed suspicion at Grant Feather. ‘And as for a pirate–’

‘My dear Marquess, you misconstrue the sense of my proposed observation. But no matter. Suffice it to remark that an
American
boy might conceivably have such a name.’

Grant Feather laughs at this. ‘He’s American, all right. But – what’s more important – he’s all alone in Candleshoe now, with the two old folk, and my mother, and a bunch of children younger than himself. And these crooks may be starting another attack.’

‘Then we’d better be moving on.’ It is Arthur Spendlove who speaks, and he steps out as he does so. ‘What about that other boy – Robin, did you say? Will he have reached the village?’

‘Not yet. But he sure will quite soon. I’m certain he got clean away.’

‘Then there doesn’t seem much to worry about. We’ll go up to the house now, and wait for the arrival of the police, and so on. With a crowd of us like this, it isn’t likely that the thieves will show up again. They certainly don’t seem much in evidence at the moment.’ Arthur turns to Grant. ‘Don’t you think they may have gone already? For I gather you didn’t actually draw them when you put up that diversionary turn?’

‘I did not. And it makes me a mite uneasy. I think they feel they’ve got a trump card, and believe they can play it any moment now. That would account for their not much minding whether I walked straight out of the place or not. They reckon that they can be clear of Candleshoe, Titians and all, before any effective force can be mustered.’

‘In that case, Mr Feather, they are wrong.’ Lord Scattergood delivers himself of this with a snort of indignation, and at the same moment quickens his pace. ‘My son and I, together with Mr Archdeacon… By the way, this is Mr Archdeacon.’

‘How do you do, sir.’

‘How do you do.’

‘I say that my son and I, together with Mr Archdeacon and yourself, constitute an effective force in ourselves. Archdeacon, am I wrong?’

‘Certainly not, Marquess. No other view of the matter would occur to me. We have all the makings of a well-balanced force, if I may say so.’

‘Precisely.’ And now from under his deerstalker Lord Scattergood turns a stern eye on Grant. ‘You, sir – do you agree?’

At this – and with a deplorable lack of military caution – Grant gives a shout of laughter. ‘Yes, Marquess. But we’re nothing on the garrison at present in the house, or I’d never have quit it, even to get that boy away. If we can get in and join up with it, we should do pretty well. But you will have to take your orders from Jay.’

‘From the boy? Does Miss Candleshoe do that?’

Grant laughs again. ‘When there’s a crisis, I guess she treats him pretty well as commander-in-chief.’

‘Then – while we are inside Candleshoe – that settles the matter.’ Having thus declared himself, Lord Scattergood continues to march up the drive. ‘Would it be the sort of place that has a front-door bell?’

‘I suppose so.’ Grant finds this an odd question. ‘Wouldn’t Benison have a front-door bell?’

‘Do you know, I’ve never looked to see?’ Lord Scattergood appears much struck by this circumstance. ‘But here we are. And no doubt the best thing will be a very loud knock.’

Candleshoe is before them, and Grant sees that the moon has moved on as if to inspect a fresh face of it. He has little idea of the time, but knows that the small hours have come. Even so, he could count the hours of his acquaintance with the house very readily upon his ten fingers. And this is strange, since it already has the air of an established landmark in his life. Moreover he is still apprehensive that it may have come to stay. The night’s wild events, when happily over, will by no means render the place less endearing in his mother’s regard. Miss Candleshoe and Mr Armigel, he gloomily reflects, may be watercolour sketching upon the Yang-tse-kiang within a twelve-month. Meanwhile he remembers Jay and his archers within, and the uncertain number of evilly – as it may be of desperately – disposed persons without. The approach to Candleshoe has its hazards, and he wonders whether Lord Scattergood ought to be apprised of them. ‘Do you think, sir,’ he presently asks, ‘that the front door will be the best thing?’

‘My dear fellow, nothing else would be civil. I have some business – family business, you might say – to discuss with Miss Candleshoe; and she is both a spirited woman and apt to stand upon old-fashioned forms. It wouldn’t do to climb in through a bathroom window, you know – it wouldn’t do at all… I think we go up these steps. Spot of mortar wouldn’t come amiss to them – eh?’

They climb the steps. Grant doesn’t at all know what is going to happen – a cloud of arrows from one direction or a rain of revolver bullets from another. But Lord Scattergood, who appears unable to command more than an intermittent consciousness of the altogether abnormal state of affairs at Candleshoe, is not a person with whose views one ought hastily to express nervous dissent; and Grant mounts the steps beside him. He can hear Mr Archdeacon, who is immediately behind, offering Arthur Spendlove miscellaneous antiquarian observations on the building. They are standing before the front door, and Lord Scattergood has found a knocker. In a moment Grant is realizing how deep has been the silence which the Marquess now proceeds to break. It is hard to believe that the enemy still lurks. It is even hard to believe that there has ever really been an enemy at all. The fantastic fracas in the library might be remembered from a broken dream.

‘Who goes there?’

There is no doubt about what the garrison feels. The challenge, although its pitch suggests one of the less mature of Jay’s following, rings out sharply and formidably enough. Lord Scattergood however comports himself as if his knock had produced a butler bowing gravely at an opened portal. ‘Is Miss Candleshoe at home? The Marquess of Scattergood.’

There is silence for some seconds, during which Grant has an impression of considerable confabulation in progress behind the massive timber confronting them. And then comes the voice of Mr Armigel. It is placid and decisive. ‘Miss Candleshoe is not at home.’

Grant’s sense of the incongruity of this exchange is suddenly sharpened by the impression that he can hear voices somewhere in the darkness behind him. And they are not voices, somehow, that he can associate with the advance of any forces of law and order. In the circumstances Lord Scattergood’s approach seems to him a little on the formal side. Moreover that nobleman, a moment before so resolute in manner, appears to be somewhat at a loss. It is only after a discernible hesitation that he makes a further move. ‘In that case, and since I have business of some importance with her, I will just step in and write a note.’

Inside the house this produces further distinguishable conference. Outside, Grant is now sure that he hears not only voices but some sort of engine as well. He is trying to place this – it is not at all a familiar sound – when Mr Armigel delivers himself once more with the same placidity and decision. ‘Miss Candleshoe regrets that her health disables her at present from holding either epistolatory or any other form of correspondence with her friends.’

For a moment this has all the appearance of being victoriously unanswerable. Lord Scattergood is reduced to turning round for the purpose of consulting his librarian. Grant turns too, and finds that he is looking over the heads of the others at a stretch of neglected lawn upon which the moon is now casting lengthening shadows. Something moves on it – something at first merely puzzling, and then unbelievable and monstrous.… Grant takes one further look, swings round again, and shouts lustily. ‘Jay! Are you there? Open up!’

‘Grant?’ Jay’s voice comes from somewhere overhead.

‘Make them open up. There’s another attack coming. No time to lose.’

Among the more recent ancestresses of Mrs Feather – those active since the year 1620 – have been not a few ladies with the knack of continuing to keep things tidy while their husbands and sons have been shooting through the windows. It is doubtless this tradition that has prompted her, during the past hour or so, to encourage and assist the half-witted Tib to wash up. And to this in turn is due the fortunate circumstance that Miss Candleshoe is now able to receive her visitors in a great hall the feudal disorder of which is not incongruously enhanced by the remains of rabbit-pie and baked apples.

Mrs Feather is relieved to see Grant again, although she discerns at once that he is far from feeling this obscure nocturnal crisis to be over. Grant indeed no sooner appears than he vanishes once more, together with Jay and a middle-aged man whom she recognizes as Lord Arthur Spendlove. For the moment, therefore, Lord Scattergood is unaccompanied except by an ancient person, approximately coeval with Mr Armigel, who is occupied – very properly – in hastily stuffing away an enormous pipe as he advances into Miss Candleshoe’s presence. Mrs Feather has, of course, no notion of the inwardness of the situation. Dimly, she supposes that Lord Scattergood – conceivably in his capacity as Lord-Lieutenant of the County – has arrived at the head of a troop of horse to the relief of his beleaguered neighbour. But this impression lasts only for a moment. Being a woman of swift perceptions, Mrs Feather quickly realizes that she is present at a clash of mighty opposites, and that the shades of Candleshoes and Spendloves innumerable may well be looking down upon the scene. Indeed, she can almost discern them at an impalpable jostle in the minstrels’ gallery. This being so, Mrs Feather further feels that she herself ought to assume some role significant for the occasion. Lord Scattergood is attended by the old person with the pipe; Miss Candleshoe – a circumstance, this, surely more impressive in itself – is flanked by her domestic chaplain; Mrs Feather sees that she herself is indubitably what is called a waiting gentlewoman, and she at once takes up on Miss Candleshoe’s other hand a posture as evocative of this condition as she can contrive. She flatters herself that this makes Lord Scattergood start at a disadvantage.

And certainly Lord Scattergood is embarrassed. He begins by proffering Miss Candleshoe a good evening – an anachronous tender to which the old lady replies only with one of her alarming bows. So alarming is it, indeed, that Lord Scattergood leaps forward with chivalrous haste and the evident object of fielding her neatly from the carpet. The discovery that this is an unnecessary solicitude puts him somewhat out of countenance, and he breaks abruptly into speech. ‘I say, you know – my Leda and Lollia. It really won’t do.’