Touch Not The Cat (9 page)

Shall I see you today?

I wouldn't be surprised,
said he, and the doors slowly closed between us like a cloud drawing over the sun.

There was no sign of life from the Court. Curtains hung close over the windows. On the moat the swans sailed with their six grey young, and a blue heron fished busily for roach. The air was pure and very still.

I took an hour, alone in the great neglected gardens. The swans cruised unheeding, the heron fished on. The rabbits in the orchard sat bolt upright to watch me, their fur outlined with light and their pricked ears as transparent as shells. The beautiful old house dreamed above its reflection, rose-red brick and glittering windows mirrored in the still moat, and moving faintly in the wake of the swans. Not mine, I thought; never mine again. All that had vanished, blown away on the sweet morning air with Jon Ashley's dust.
Hic manet.
Here lies he where he longed to be. And where shall I lie? Shall I be brought back here one day, to become, however insubstantially, part of this garden and this glimmering air? And who will bring me?

I walked for an hour, but nothing spoke and no one came.

There were bacon and eggs for breakfast, and fresh bread baked by Mrs. Henderson. Sunshine poured into the cottage kitchen. Last night's fire had been cleaned out and relaid, and the room was neat as a ship's galley.

"You do yourself well," I told Rob Granger. "She'll be lucky. Do I know her, by the way?"

"I doubt it. She's a kind of cousin; used to live near Ashley Village, but her folks moved away.

She'll be back soon, then we'll be making plans."

"Well," I said, "tell her from me that she's on to a good thing."

He grinned, and said, "Oh, she knows," and cut a couple of slices off the loaf. "Honey?"

"Thanks." And not just with the cooking, I thought, as I spread honey on the lovely, crusty bread.

There was something solidly dependable about him, a kind of inbuilt strength; the sense that day-to-day frets would pass him by like the rain driving against a tree. Not a man to hurry; he looked, and was (as I remembered from childhood squabbles), as obstinate as a mule, and apparently as set in his ways as a plough horse that knows no other job. His ease of manner with me came from long acquaintance, but it came also from a self-confidence that was part of him; not the kind of confidence that was bred into my elegant Ashley cousins, but something hacked out of a hard Me, as a fluid line of sculpture is in time hacked out of hardstone. Yes, she would be lucky; it was to be hoped, for my cousins' sake, that she would be content to stay at Ashley, and not persuade Rob to leave.

I said something of the sort, but he merely made a noncommittal sound through a mouthful of bread and honey, then said, as soon as he could: "It'll be strange, with Mr. Howard here. I can't imagine it, somehow. Will you stay, yourself?"

"I don't know. I suppose I shall, for the time being. I really haven't got round to deciding anything yet."

"Mm. I dare say there's no hurry. These things always take a long time to settle, and the way the Court's tied up, it could take years."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"It comforts me," said Rob. "Give everyone time to get used to the idea. It won't seem the same without Mr. Ashley . . . and without you."

He spoke so simply that I took it straight, as a fact and not a compliment. "It comforts me, too. I somehow can't take it all in. Not quite yet."

"Well," he said, "don't try. There's plenty of time. And maybe Mr. Howard won't want to come here at all." He grinned. "Mind you, everyone in the village is wild to see his wife. I don't know what they think a Mexican is like, but I know Miss Marget was talking about totem poles, and Mrs. Henderson told me that Mrs. Gray—you know, the head of the Mothers' Union—made a speech last week about race relations and the colour bar. Very broadminded, she was, I believe."

I laughed. "Actually, she's pure Spanish, and from her photos, rather gorgeous. But I must admit I can't quite see her —either of them—settling here."

"Then it'll be Emory's? Seems funny, doesn't it," said Rob slowly, "that James loses all that by about twenty or thirty minutes? Must be queer to be a twin."

"Very, I should think. But I don't know if James counts it as 'losing.' There's no money here, Rob.

The place is lovely, but very soon now there'll be a time when no one can keep it."

"So I reckon. But wouldn't you have thought the National Trust, or someone like that, would have taken it on? I mean, a place like this, that historians and such go wild about . . . ?"

"The National Trust won't take any property over unless it's endowed, and how would we manage that? I know Daddy tried everything and everybody. I think in the long run that someone—some body like the Pilgrim Trust, or even the Department of the Environment—would step in to preserve the house, but I doubt if they'd ever bother with the gardens and the land. That's bound to go, history or no history."

"Well," he said, "don't get me wrong, but it looks to me as if you'll be thankful yet that it's not your headache."

"I'm sure you're right. To start with, it'll be Mr. Emerson's, poor man. He'll have to sort out all the legal tangles— what he calls the dead man's hand."

"Dead man's hand?" Rob looked faintly shocked, and I paused in surprise, then realized that he must think the lawyer was referring to my father.

"I only meant the trust. . . . You seemed to know how the place was tied up? He meant my umpteenth great-grandfather, the one who created the trust, reaching from the grave to make things awkward for all of us."

"Oh, aye, I get it. Your dad did talk about it once. You all have to consent before you can sell anything, isn't that it?" He pondered it for a minute. "Could be awkward, yes, but he meant well, and it seems to me he's maybe made things a mite safer for you, the way it's turned out. I mean, they can't sell your cottage over your head, even if they want to."

"They couldn't anyway," I told him. "All the bit they call the 'cottage strip'—the old orchard, and the strip of land along the Pool as far as the One Ash road—none of that's included in the trust. It was all Daddy could leave me, but it's mine."

He was looking very thoughtful. "If they did want to break the trust, and sell the rest up, would you consent to it?"

"That would depend. We might have to sell the land, to endow the house. I know that Daddy had that on his mind. But I'm not quite sure what it would mean to you, for instance, and to the Hendersons. We didn't get as far as discussing that." I looked at him. "If the trust were broken, Rob, what would happen to you? Would you be able to buy this house for yourself?"

"I don't think so, but then I mightn't want to stay. You don't need to bother yourself about that.

You've enough to think about for yourself." He straightened in his chair. "Anyway, this isn't just the morning to talk about the future. I shouldn't have asked you about your plans; I'm sorry. But, you know, once all this, your dad and everything—once it's gone a bit into the background, and once you've found out what he wanted you to find out, it'll all settle itself. It'll work out, believe me it will. Only, you've got to let it take its time."

I nodded, and finished my tea, soothed by his country common-sense. Time; there was always time in the country. Leave things to themselves, and they grew, and ripened, and were cut down, all in the right seasons. Now, it seemed, was the fallow time. "Well," I said, "we'll give it a chance to work out.

I'm certainly in no fit state of mind to make decisions. I've got to get all the complicated legal stuff settled first, and by the time the mills of God have ground all the facts to a powder I'll have sorted myself out, too—or perhaps it'll be decided for me. But there is something I can do straight away. I can have a look for the paper my father spoke of, and try to find out what he meant; if there's something he wants me to do. I'll have to get into the Court to do that. I've got my own key to the east door, but I expect all the rooms are locked on the public side, aren't they? I don't want to explain myself to the Underhills yet. I suppose you've no idea who has the main house keys?"

"Yes," said Rob. "I have."

As easy as that.
"You
have?"

He nodded. "Your dad gave them to me before he went to Germany. Didn't you know? Mr.

Underhill's got the other set, all the public rooms as well as their own; they have to have them because of fire, and because of the quarter-pounders"— this was our private name for the tourists who paid twenty-five pence each—"but your dad told me he'd given the private keys off that set to Mr. Emerson.

He left his own lot with me."

"Well!" I said with relief. "There's an end to
that
mystery! You've no idea what mayhem Mr.

Emerson and I were picturing! I've a feeling he suspected they'd been stolen from Daddy when he was knocked down. Apparently I'm allowed to keep them, officially, till all the legal business is settled."

"You'd better have them now." While I had been speaking he had pulled open a drawer in the dresser, and fished out from somewhere a bunch of keys which I recognized. "Here you are, then. Do you know which is which? They go in order, from here. That's the main door, then the Priest's Parlour, the Council Chamber . . ." He clicked the keys round on the massive ring, like beads on a rosary. "They're in order for the tour. Was there any room you wanted specially?"

"Yes, the library."

He selected a key. "That's it. No, leave those things. Mrs. Henderson will do them.

Would you like me to go in with you this morning?"

"No, I don't think so, thanks. I've been thinking, Rob; there'll be quarter-pounders going round today, won't there? If I go in on my own, with keys, someone's sure to see me, and ask questions. I'll leave the keys with you for now, and I'll go round with the tour myself, and just take a look in general, then later on I'll introduce myself to the Underhills, and ask them if I can come and go in the house as I want. What time's the first tour?"

"Half past ten." He dropped the keys back in the drawer, and shut it. No question or comment. "Stay here till then if you like. Or do you want to go down to the cottage this morning?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

"That'll be Mrs. Henderson at the back door now. She'll want a word with you, I dare say.

See you later." He smiled and went out.

Mrs. Henderson was small, brisk, and sixtyish, with greying hair "done" each week as unyieldingly and unvaryingly as a metal helmet by "our Eileen" who was the village hairdresser. She had vivid blue eyes and a high patch of colour on each cheek, and was as efficient, as quick, and about as silent as a computer in full schedule.

"Well, now, Miss Bryony, it's nice to see you back again, though I'm sorry about your poor dad, I was just saying to the Vicar last week, for all Mr. Ashley's had to go off to that hospital in Germany he didn't look all that ill to me and mark my words, I said, he'll be back here with us sooner than he thinks, but believe you me, Miss Bryony, I never thought my words would come to pass this way, nor that when I saw you back with us it would be just to pass on yourself. And when I say pass on, you know I don't mean what it might look as if I mean, I just mean that everyone knows now that the Court will have to go to Mr. Howard, though folk are wondering, and I know you'll not take it amiss, Miss Bryony, whether Mr. Howard's wife will take to it here, I mean, I'm the last person to have any prejudices at all, and nowadays you daren't even talk about nigger brown any more, dare you, but coloured is coloured, and she'll have been brought up different to us as like as not, not to mention religion, and that's another thing, coming from where she does she'll be a Catholic, I dare say, and whether Mr. Howard's turned or not, the children will, won't they, and what's the Vicar to do with the church and the living and all, and very funny it would look, wouldn't it, if the next Ashleys had to go all the way to the Catholic church at Hangman's End?"

While she was talking she had taken her apron down and put it on, helped me finish clearing the breakfast things, stacked them, run hot water into the sink, and started to wash up. I found the tea towel and wiped, letting the monologue run over me as I had let it run over me every time I met Mrs.

Henderson, even after an absence of less than twenty-four hours. Sooner or later she ran down and stopped for breath, and then from long practice I was adept at picking out the one topic which I might want to pursue; or rather, at ignoring the dozen or so topics I wanted to avoid. I spared a thought for the Vicar and Rob Granger; how, each day, did they cope with this? Then I realized I had seen the answer: the Vicar went down to the greenhouses, and Rob, when she arrived, smiled sweetly and left by the other door.

"Mr. Howard's wife is not coloured," I said, "she's Spanish. And if you remember the portrait on the stairs, we've had a Spanish lady here before, and it seemed to work. I'm told Mrs. Howard's very beautiful, and she probably is an R.C., but I doubt very much if they'll come to Ashley. Have you seen my cousin Emory lately? Or Francis?"

But Mrs. Henderson was just as good as I was at fixing on the topics she wanted. "Now you come to mention it, of course I knew about the Spanish lady. There was that song about her, wasn't there? But that was in the days when everybody was Catholics, anyway, so it didn't matter. The Vicar told me. And now I come to think about it it wouldn't be her children that came to Ashley Court, it's Mr. Howard's own. And when I say 'own,' of course I mean—"

"Yes, of course. The twins and Francis. Have any of them been here recently?"

"And of course if Mr. Howard doesn't come back," said Mrs. Henderson, with obvious regret for a rich source of gossip slipping from her grasp, "then it'll be Mr. Emory and his wife, and a very nice girl she is, and everyone says the same, though a bit young for it—"

"What wife?"

"Not for marriage, I don't mean, because nowadays they're ready and willing for anything before they're turned fifteen, though I can't see myself that marriage and a family brings you much except a load of housework and cooking, but they will do it, and I suppose it's nature's way—"