The Salisbury Manuscript (13 page)

Northwood House

The train journey from Salisbury to Downton was short, scarcely more than ten minutes. Tom Ansell spent the time turning over the question to which he would soon, presumably, get some sort of answer. Why did Percy Slater wish to see him? Tom would have been perfectly justified in turning down the request since the older brother was no longer a client of his firm. According to David Mackenzie, he’d had a falling-out with one of the other partners. Tom might have telegraphed to London for Mackenzie’s opinion but he’d not have been certain of getting a reply by the time fixed for his meeting. Besides, Tom believed this was a matter where he could act without consulting his employer.

He wondered how Percy Slater had got to know of his visit to Salisbury. The obvious answer was through Walter Slater, whether the son had accidentally let something slip or had deliberately informed his father – though why he’d do that, Tom couldn’t think. Tom was curious to meet this man who was apparently so different from his churchefied brother and son. The tone of the letter was civil enough if a bit peremptory. It didn’t show any of the feebleness or decline which – according to his brother – Percy Slater was subject to.

The train chugged through the flatter landscape which lies to the south of Salisbury. An early sun had been swallowed up by clouds rolling in from the west. The train reached the small town of Downton a couple of minutes before it was scheduled to arrive. Tom got off, together with a trio of women who’d been doing some shopping in Salisbury. Shopping for drapery or clothes, he assumed, since their bags were marked
Cathcart’s
. It was beginning to rain and the women made a show of opening their umbrellas.

On the stand outside the little station was a four-wheeled clarence with a bay horse in harness. The coachman nodded at Tom as a sign to approach. He was a slight man, hunching himself against the rain. He had a small, disagreeable face with a great dimple in his chin, as though someone had tried to bore a hole in it. He was wearing a billycock hat.

‘Mr Ansell?’

‘Yes. Mr Slater sent you?’

‘Get in,’ said the coachman, after a moment adding as an afterthought, ‘sir.’

Tom climbed in and the carriage pulled away. They turned into a wide street and almost immediately had to halt because of a herd of cattle jostling in front of them, the animals under the control of a diminutive boy with a switch. They crossed a bridge over a river. Through the ill-fitting windows of the clarence, his nose was hit by the acrid smell of a tannery. The road began to climb slightly and the houses and cottages accompanying them petered out. Tom had no idea how far they were going. He looked out at the leafless trees which crowded the sides of the road. The window-glass was smeary with dirt and rain. The upholstery of the seats was frayed and the springs protruded so that it was difficult to find a clear patch to sit on. Whatever Percy Slater spent his money on, it wasn’t to give himself a comfortable or striking means of conveyance.

After a time they began to pass a low wall on their left. Tom, by now in carping mood, noted that the wall was broken down in places. The carriage turned into an entrance and passed a single-storey lodge with blank windows and a corkscrew chimney. Though it was a cheerless morning there was no smoke coming from the chimney, no gatekeeper, no sign of life at all. Beyond the gate and on either side of the drive stretched acres of grass dotted with trees and bushes.

Tom wasn’t aware they’d reached the main house until the carriage veered past its facade. He glimpsed a large covered porch, with steps and pillars. They rounded the corner and pulled up in a walled yard. The driver clambered down and stood by the coach door but didn’t otherwise move. Tom opened the door himself and stood in the rain.

The driver was a head shorter than Tom. He jerked his dimpled chin in the direction of a side entrance.

‘It’s open. Just go inside and call. Nan’ll hear you. She knows you’re coming.’

Tom did as he was told while the coachman began to attend to the horse. As he’d said, the side-entrance was not locked. Tom stood in a flagstoned lobby. It struck colder and damper inside than out in the open. There was no one in the lobby. He felt slightly foolish and also irritated – after all, this visit to Northwood House was not being made at his suggestion. Perhaps he should demand to be taken back to Downton station, without troubling his host. He remembered that he hadn’t thought to check the railway timetable for his return.

There was a touch at Tom’s elbow. A woman was standing there. He hadn’t heard her approach. She was old and tiny, all wrinkles. She was wearing a black shift-like dress, also old and creased. This was Nan, he supposed.

‘I am here to call on Mr Slater.’

He had to repeat himself several times since she was hard of hearing. Eventually she said, ‘Mr Slater is in the smoking room. This way.’

Her voice didn’t rise much above a whisper. But she moved decisively enough down the passageway which led from the lobby. They passed a kitchen and various store-rooms before going through the baize-covered door separating the servants’ area of the house from the family rooms. On the other side of half-open doors Tom saw sheets draped over the furniture, swathed chandeliers, dust and decrepitude everywhere. What had David Mackenzie and Felix Slater said about Percy’s wife, Elizabeth? That she spent her time in London. He wasn’t surprised.

The door of the smoking room was ajar. Nan extended a twig-like arm as a gesture that Tom should go in. She didn’t announce him but by this stage Tom wasn’t expecting anything so elaborate. A man was sitting in a window-seat gazing out at the grounds, at the rain. He turned his head, reluctantly as it seemed, to look at Tom standing in the entrance to the room.

‘You must be Mr Ansell,’ he said, ‘Well, you are welcome to Northwood.’

This was the most effusive greeting Tom had received so far this morning and he felt almost encouraged by it. Percy Slater detached himself from his place by the window. He picked up a walking stick which was resting against the cushioned seat, although Tom observed that as he made his way across the room he scarcely used it. It seemed to be more of a theatrical prop than a literal one.

The man in front of him didn’t bear much resemblance to Felix, although there was the same set to the jaw. But this Slater was fuller, much fuller in his body, and more slack in the face. Where the Canon had a pale complexion, his brother was ruddy with a nose covered in broken veins. Not quite so tall as the churchman either, Tom thought, and without a trace of the bird-like characteristics of the other.

‘It is a long time since I have met a representative of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie,’ said Percy. ‘Indeed, when they handled my affairs there was no Mackenzie in the picture. Drink, Mr Ansell?’

Tom had already caught the whiff of alcohol and seen a bottle of sherry together with some drinking glasses and a pile of magazines on a table near the window. ‘Thank you,’ he said, following a dictum of Mackenzie’s that one should always respond positively to the hospitality of a client – or even a non-client, in this case. Leaning his stick against a convenient chair, Percy Slater poured Tom a glass and refilled his own.

Tom glanced around. The room was sparsely furnished apart from a glass-fronted cabinet containing a couple of shotguns and, opposite, a single wall which was covered in sporting prints. The prints looked fresh but everything else, the drapes, the chairs, the occasional tables, had a worn and battered appearance. Percy held out the glass of sherry and Tom went across to take it. He noticed that the magazines piled on the table by the window were a mixture of
Bell’s Life
and
Sporting Life
. Percy saw where he was looking.

‘You a betting man, Mr Ansell?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Wise probably. I was sitting in that window-seat just now and watching the progress of two drops of rain down one of the panes. A fitful, zigzag progress but always down, down, down. They will reach the bottom eventually like all of us. I thinks to myself, if there was someone here with me, I’d lay a bet on which drop would reach the bottom of the pane first. I suppose you wouldn’t care to take that bet, Mr Ansell?’

There was an almost wistful quality to the question as if he already knew what the answer would be. Tom shook his head. There were some invitations from a client, or a non-client, which you were not compelled to accept. Percy Slater settled himself into a battered armchair near a coal fire which was giving off more smoke than warmth. He indicated that Tom should sit in an equally battered armchair on the other side of the fireplace. Slater kept his walking stick cradled between his legs.

‘Yes, wise probably,’ he repeated, ‘wise not to be a betting man. Wise to husband your resources. Between ourselves, that was the reason that I . . . dispensed with the services of your firm. It was Alexander Lye who was responsible for my decision – is Lye still alive, by the way?’

‘Though Mr Lye is getting on now, he still comes into the office,’ said Tom, not elaborating on how Mr Lye turned up only to sign the papers pushed in front of him.

‘Lye – always thought that was an excellent name for a man of law. Anyway, Alexander Lye made some comment to me about my betting habits. I couldn’t be doing with it. I already had enough of that sort of thing from my father. Lye’s words were to do with a loss which I incurred at Dwyer’s. You wouldn’t remember Dwyer’s, Mr Ansell. Sold cigars and cheroots in St Martin’s Lane but their real business was taking bets. Well, they took too much on the favourite for the Chester Cup, back in ’51. A favourite isn’t the favourite for nothing. The results used to come in from Chester quite late in the day so they had the leisure of a whole night to strip the place of all the movables and by the morning there was nothing left but the shell of a shop. The shell of a shop, I say.’

Percy Slater seemed half amused, half angry at the memory as he shifted in his chair. His walking stick waggled in sympathy.

‘Took twenty-five thousand with them. Not all mine, of course. Fact, I got off quite lightly. But it was enough to cause Mr Alexander Lye to make a few unwelcome remarks about my betting habits – as if it was
my
fault that Dwyer’s was a bunch of rogues! I did not choose to be lectured at and took my business elsewhere.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it, Mr Slater,’ said Tom.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Percy sharply. ‘I wasn’t what you would call one of their respectable clients. No doubt they were glad to see the back of me, as you would be if this were happening today.’

His eyes narrowed as he said this and he fixed Tom with an expression that challenged the younger man to deny what he’d just said. The time for niceties seemed to be over.

‘Why did you ask to see me, Mr Slater?’

‘I understand that my brother Felix, the good and respectable Canon, is employing your services at the moment. What for?’

‘Mr Slater, even if you were still a client of ours, I could hardly pass on that information without your brother’s consent. And as you say, you ceased to be represented by my firm many years ago.’

‘This is a family matter, Mr Ansell. It is not up to Felix to do exactly as he pleases.’

Percy Slater was getting agitated. He spilled some of the drink from his glass. Tom wondered about the time of the return train from Downton.

‘Not so long ago I sent some stuff to my brother,’ said Percy, ‘old papers and the like, relating to our father George and to the history of this place. I thought he would interested in them, being a
historical
sort of person. He has had them long enough. I would like those items back.’

‘I am sorry, Mr Slater, I should not even be discussing this. But – supposing such articles to exist – then I am informed that they were freely
given
to the Canon. And, furthermore, that there is a letter written by you to that effect.’

‘Dammit, sir!’ Percy became more agitated. There was no more drink to spill from his glass but his stick clattered to the floor. ‘All this legal supposing and ‘furthermores’. I can’t stand it.
Furthermore
, Mr Ansell, I have no recollection of writing the letter you’re talking about. Have you, by chance, seen any of these items?’

‘I may have done.’

‘But none of them are currently in your possession?’

‘No. They are in the hands of Canon Slater.’

Tom felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t merely the other man’s display of anger, and the odd question as to whether he actually had any of them in his possession. There was also the fact that he himself had not seen the letter which Felix Slater had referred to, the one from Percy surrendering the papers to him. He had taken the Canon’s explanation on trust. But he should have asked to see the letter, all the same. Tom made an attempt to be conciliatory.

‘I am sure the material is in good hands, sir.’

‘Oh, you are, are you, sir? Good hands?’

Tom tried again. He said, ‘It is not as if these things have passed out of the family. There is Walter to consider as well.’

‘Walter?’

‘Your son, Mr Slater. The son who lodges with your brother.’

‘Yes, there is always my son, isn’t there?’ said Percy. He spoke wearily. Plainly there wasn’t much of a bond between them. Perhaps Percy considered his son to have abandoned or betrayed him by going into the Church. This seemed to be borne out by what Percy said next, ‘He has turned Walter’s head, has Felix.’

Tom made to get to his feet. He didn’t see much point in prolonging the encounter. Mr Percy Slater didn’t have to be humoured. He wasn’t a client. Tom went to stand by the window, down which the raindrops were still trickling. The view beyond was one of neglect: a weed-strewn terrace, flower beds where either nothing grew or there was a profusion of unkempt plants. The parkland beyond was dotted with clumps of trees. He heard a sound behind him and turned. Percy was waving him back to his chair.

‘Felix would like to have me declared incapable, no doubt,’ Percy continued. ‘He would like to have me admitted to some sanatorium or asylum so that
his
Walter can come early into possession of Northwood.’