On Castle Walls

30

On Castle Walls

    Mrs Pincher giggled and bridled. “Lordy, you don’t owe me nothing, Miss—me Lady, I should say!” She leered ingratiatingly at Nan.

    What with Hughes’s run-in over the quality of the local innkeeper’s stable accommodations, not to say of his ale, the episode of Ranjit and Richpal in their blankets, and the fact which Nan had now discovered, that Mrs Pincher was sister-in-law to the farmer’s wife whose butter Miss Gump had insulted, Nan had been under the distinct impression that anyone from Sunny Bay House was persona non grata in Mrs Pincher’s small, cluttered, and oderiferous village shop. And certainly Mrs Pincher had addressed her sourly as “Miss” heretofore.

    “Er—but I theenk you mistake, Mrs Pincher,” she said limply. “There was a vairy great deal of mail for us, no? And I do not theenk eet was franked?”

    “Lord Rockingham had given Mrs Urqhart a frank,” said Ruth. She was solidly on Nan’s side. The more so since Mrs Pincher in the past had tried to fob her and Sita off with weevilly flour and the announcement that there was no ’am to be ’ad if it was ever so, whereas they had just seen with their own eyes a more favoured customer going off with a great juicy package of it.

    “Fancy that, now!” leered Mrs Pincher ingratiatingly. “That’ll be a friend of yours, me Lady, will it?”

    “I know heem vairy slightly,” said Nan on a grim note.

    “Well, now!” breathed Mrs Pincher admiringly.

    Nan took a deep breath. “Mrs Pincher, we must owe you a great deal for our other mail, and—and I cannot possibly permit you to bear the expense of eet!”

    “Lord bless your lovely face, Miss! Me Lady, I should say! It weren’t me as paid it!”

    “Then who was eet?” said Nan, staring. Ruth just stared.

    “That were me Lord, himself,” she said impressively. “Ah. Come into the shop in person, he did, nothing nifty-naffy about him, friendly as you please, just as if he were any gent at all! And the minute I says as there be some letters for Sunny Bay ’Ouse and we was a-wondering whether to send a message, or that, he ups and says, He will take care of the lot!” More beaming. Still ingratiating.

    Nan looked at her in confusion. “That was most gracious of heem, indeed.”

    “Ah!” she said nodding. “That it were! A true gennelman, New Lord be!”

    “Uh—oh, yes: Miss Gump mentioned that the old Lord Stamforth died. I am correct: thees was he, Lord Stamforth?”

    “In person, me Lady!” she sighed. “Large as life and twice as natural, if you know what I mean! Riding that great black from the castle that no-one ever ’as been able to get a leg across, ever since the poor Old Lord was took poorly! Ah! True blood will out! Even if ’e be but a nephew and not Old Lord’s own son. But my Granfer Perkiss, ’e can remember New Lord’s pa, clear as day, and his pa afore him, and they was gents what had a marvellous way with a ’orse, too. There was never a ’orse in Castle stables what would throw one of the family, me Lady. The touch, they all ’ave.”

    Nan was taking all of this with a very large grain of salt, and she could see that Ruth was, too. “Eendeed? Well, I am most grateful to heem,” she said briskly. “Pray convey my thanks eef he should happen een again, Mrs Pincher. Now, I have some few commissions—”

    Mrs Pincher was immediately all over her, assuring her that anything she didn’t have they would send in to Stamforth town to fetch this very day, me Lady...

    “Ees eet not agreeable, to know that one has been taken up by the local representative of the ruling class?” said Nan on a sour note as they made their way back, laden with packages, to Sunny Bay House.

    “Y— Buh-but— So you don’t know him?” gasped Ruth.

    “No. I had never even heard of heem until we came down here.”

    “He—he must be a very agreeable person,” she faltered.

    Nan shrugged. “Possibly. Or mad, of course.”

    “Wuh-well, yes! Or perhaps if he is new, he is concerned to, er, well, ingratiate himself with his people?”

    Nan eyed her approvingly. “That ees highly likely indeed, Ruth.” She paused. “Though he need not bother to extend hees charity so far as to re-ingratiate us weeth the local vicar,” she murmured.

    Ruth went into a burst of helpless giggles, gasping: “No! Silly man!”

    Smiling, Nan admitted: “I am glad of the cheese and the ham, however. And Hughes weell be vairy glad indeed, when he returns from The Towers, to know that the farm weell be able to supply us weeth a whole ham to ourselves!”

    There was no-one home, of course, to whom they could impart the curious story of the new Lord Stamforth’s gracious behaviour towards their unknown selves, and so no-one to remark on how very odd, really, the thing was. Underdene—such was the village’s name—was very tiny indeed, its ancient inn being its only claim to distinction and that a dubious one. And though it was reasonably close to Stamforth Castle as the crow flew, any castle owner with an ounce of nous would not shop at Mrs Pincher’s. So what on earth had he been doing there? Well—Ruth’s guess was probably the closest: the new man, out to impress his people. Nan and Ruth thought no more about it.

    The weather had greatly improved, rather as if it had only been waiting for Dom’s and Iris’s departure to do so, and a couple of very warm, sticky days were experienced. Ruth felt too languid to do anything but “supervise” the children’s swimming, the which, since their tiny bay was completely private, soon developed into dipping, on her part. Nan joined in the dipping but she was far more used to hot weather than was Ruth and so, when the third sparkling fine day was upon them, declared her intention of getting out and about in it.

    Ruth was lying under a small tree on the lawn, or rather, field, which sloped down to Sunny Bay: she sat up with a start.

    “I shall leave you Alfred and Richpal as protection,” said Nan merrily, “and take Jimmy: I have sent heem to fetch the trap from the inn; I am sure that after the graciousness of New Lord, Mr Grundy weell be only too anxious to hire eet me!”

    “Well, yes, but where are you going?”

    With a giggle Nan admitted: “I am possessed of an awful desire to see Stamforth Castle for myself! Should you like to come?”

    “Er—someone had best stay here with the children,” she said weakly.

    “Oh, absolutely!” said Nan with another giggle, dancing away.

    The sun shone out of a bright forget-me-not sky, a few little puffs of white floated high in the blue, and dust rose from under the wheels of the little trap and the hoofs of the shaggy pony from the inn. Jimmy leaned back and was soon asleep with his mouth open, and Nan drove happily on. Mr Will Grundy had assured her that she    could not possibly go astray. Once she had ascertained that “Great Hawthorn” was a tree, not a village or a house, Nan thought she probably could not get lost, no. Anyway, if she did, she could always retrace her steps, she was not that hopeless!

    After following the dusty lane for some time she was feeling very glad she had put on an old print gown, and an even older straw bonnet. In fact it was a pity the bonnet  did not have a veil, for the dust was very thick indeed, the narrow lane being very chalky. She turned at Great Hawthorn as instructed and was presumably now crossing Home Farm, though there were no cows or farm buildings or such-like in sight; but the bulk of the great grey castle on its hill rose steadily in front of her and she knew she was not lost.

    Jimmy woke with a grunt and a start as his mistress pulled the trap up sharply at the foot of Castle Hill.

    “Ees eet not a splendeed sight?” she beamed, head tilted back to admire it on its gold-green mound in the sun.

    “Big un, aren’t she, me Lady?” he croaked.

    Nan smiled at him. “Eendeed she ees, Jimmy, my dear, and I am going right up to have a closer look! Would you like to bring the trap round by the road? See, it winds that way. Or would you rather stay here?”

    Jimmy would rather have stayed where he was, preferably asleep, but agreed that he would take the trap up the road, while his mistress climbed the hill. Only were she sure as she wanted to?

    Nan got out of the trap with a laugh. “Of course I am sure! What a glorious day eet ees! And what a glorious sight! Of course, eet ees not red, but I have not seen anything so wonderful since I visited the great Red Palace of Ishnapoor!”

    “Uh—yes, me Lady,” he said foggily.

    Nan smiled. “Your Windsor Castle ees also vairy fine, but eet ees almost tame, compared to thees! A castle should be on a hill, do you not theenk?”

    “Uh—yes, me Lady. Very—uh—noble, it do look.”

    Beaming approvingly, Nan agreed that Stamforth Castle did, indeed, look noble, and waved him on his way.

    The sun shone, the air was pure and filled with the scent of the grass. Nan walked slowly up the hill, sniffing pleasedly. At the top, she smiled a little. No wonder poor Mina had been disappointed! There was certainly no sign at all of a moat, and the sprawling honeysuckle over the great archway where the drawbridge had once been was so tame! Though it did smell wonderful.

    Nan stood there at the foot of the great grey wall for a long time, breathing the sweet scent of the honeysuckle, a short, rather scruffy figure in a crumpled fawn print gown and battered straw bonnet, gazing blankly down the peaceful green-gold slope of Castle Hill, while bloody scenes of sieges and fierce battles and bloody victories and bitter surrenders played themselves out in her head. She knew, of course, nothing of the history of this specific castle. But that was not the point.

    Finally she gave a long sigh and turned back to the deep arch that led into—well, into what would have been the forecourt only, and thus the third- or fourth-to-last line of defence, in a great Indian fort. But in an English one? She went slowly under the arch, peering up for arrow slits. Dom was right: there were none.

    Daphne had described with a particular bitterness the tame lawn that met the eye when one entered Stamforth Castle: Nan was expecting this and, indeed, could see part of it as she approached: so she was brought up short with a gasp at what lay before her.

    Directly opposite the great archway the huge, almost featureless heap that must be the main keep glowered darkly at her. It had arrow slits, all right. They started, at a conservative estimate, about three storeys up its grim, grey flank. Well, once you had scaled the outer wall, supposing you had got past its defenders flinging boiling lead and such-like down on your head, you would have had to scale that!

    There was no doorway: possibly it was round at the back? Nan looked at the keep with narrowed eyes: she herself would not have had an entrance at ground level at all, but an outside staircase that could be chopped away, or burned away, at need, leading to a very narrow entrance at about the second storey... Though they would  have had to get the livestock in, now how would you manage that without leaving your ground floor wide open to being burned out by the enemy?

    There was no-one in sight to comment on or even notice Nan’s military musings: there was no sound on the still air but the buzzing of bees. After a prolonged period of staring at the keep, she turned with a little sigh to the two buildings over to the far left. These must be the “Perpendicular” edifices that Miss Gump had raved about. What a pity that the layout of the place was not more like that of an Indian fortified palace: they should be in an inner courtyard! Very pretty... In her mind’s eye Nan put some lily ponds outside them. Yes, pretty, but they must have been built hundreds of years after the original purpose of the castle was gone and forgotten. You could never have defended them, once the outer wall was breached. Too many windows.

    She turned slowly and looked back the way she had come, and then up at the great arch of the entrance. There was a piece of rusted iron up there: perhaps that had been where they had fastened a—a thing? Little Nan stared up at where a portcullis might have been, and very slowly raised her hand to about bonnet-brim level. “Rr-rrr… CRASH!” she cried, bringing it smartly down again.

    “You are out, ma’am,” said a quiet, deep voice from behind her. “The portcullis was at the far end of the entranceway; this end featured a thick oaken door.”

    Nan shrieked, and spun round. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

    Lewis had been up on the wall, gazing dreamily out across his ancestral acres, not really thinking. He had seen the trap arrive and had watched with considerable amusement as the plumpish little female figure had determinedly toiled up the hill alone. He had wondered whether she was merely admiring the view, when she had stood for so long outside the walls. He had wandered across to the inner side of the wall, still mildly amused, to follow her progress as she came through the entranceway, and had been intrigued to see her apparently halted in her tracks by the keep. He did not think, whoever she was, that she was doing it for effect: there wasn’t a soul around. He had seen ladies try to impress their companions with their sensibility, their erudition, or both, on visits to ancient monuments: this lady was alone, there was no-one present to impress, and her behaviour in no wise resembled that of such females.

    As he leant on the warm stone, idly watching her looking at his keep, wondering what she was thinking about, he had begun to suspect who she might be. No... When she turned to look over towards Old Hall and the chapel he had recognized the profile: it was she. His heart had hammered, but he had not immediately made up his mind to go down to her.

    Possibly Lewis Vane would not have gone down at all, had she not turned back to the entranceway. He had expected her to wander over towards the chapel, most ladies liked its dainty decoration. He was quite considerably intrigued: what could Lady Benedict be staring up at so intently?

    “I’m enjoying the castle, like you,” he said mildly.

    “Oh,” said Nan weakly.

    Lewis repeated with a smile in his voice: “The portcullis was at the far end of the entranceway: this end featured a heavy door.”

    “Portcullis? Oh: yes,” she said weakly. “That was what I was eemagining.”

    “Mm. Were you imagining it descending in a rush, impaling those of the enemy who had got this far?”

    She nodded silently, scowling.

    “It would have done that rather well, but I don’t think that was how it was designed to be used. It was intended as a gate.”

    “I see,” said Nan in a grim voice.

    Lewis put his hand very gently under her elbow. “I’m not mocking,” he said mildly, affecting not to notice the fact that she had jumped. “Come down to the other end: I’ll show you the grooves in the stone where the portcullis slid up and down.”

    At the entrance she looked in silence at the deep grooves in the stone.

    Lewis watched her, saying nothing.

    After a while she tilted her head back and stared intently upward. “How would they have got eet een, though?”

    Lewis replied, equally serious: “When this part of the castle was being constructed, I think they would have slid it in from above. If you come up on the wall, there is one position from which you can see where it must have fitted in. Unfortunately there’s no trace of the mechanism used to raise and lower it.” He took her elbow gently again.

    “So what ees that piece of iron high on the wall at the other end?” she asked as they turned back to the tunnelway through the wall.

    “I’m not sure, but I think it’s the remains of a door hinge.”

    Nan nodded seriously.

    “What are you looking at?” he asked as she halted, peering into the dark above.

    “For, not at. There are no arrow-slits!” she said on a cross note.

    “Er—no.” He looked at her dubiously. “The wall is solid at this point.”

    “Oh,” said Nan feebly. “Then of course. they could not... I suppose you theenk I am merely a stupeed female!” she added crossly.

    “On the contrary: I’m curious to know what led you to expect arrow-slits.”

    Nan peered at his face. In the gloom, she could not see whether he was mocking her or not. “I have seen them een India,” she said shortly.

    “Oh? In the entranceway to a castle?”

    “Yes. Well, eet was vairy much bigger than thees.” She smiled suddenly. “Een fact in these modern times there are many leetle stalls set out een the entrance, one can buy everytheeng from a carved souvenir to a cup of water or a leaf of paan!”

    “Really?” he said as they approached the exit.

    “Yes. Eet was— Well, I have seen many fortified palaces and they are built generally along those lines, but the one I am particularly theenking of was a vairy beeg one, the Red Palace of Ishnapoor.”

    “I see.” Lewis looked back at the deep archway of Stamforth Castle. “That is a splendid idea as, say, second or third line of defence. The invaders must come through the archway: the defenders would have them utterly at their mercy.”

    “Yes,” said Nan on a grateful note. “That was what I was theenking. But...” She looked around her, frowning.

    “Yes?” said Lewis after a while.

    “Eet ees the scale that ees different, I theenk. The Red Palace of Ishnapoor ees built along the same general—not plan, but general idea, I suppose; but everything ees vairy much bigger. The walls are higher and—and of course the entranceway ees much deeper.”

    “It sounds fascinating.”

    “Yes,” said Nan with a sigh.

    Lewis could see she was no longer seeing him, or his broken-down castle. He merely waited.

    Suddenly she looked up with a laugh. “At the time, I was vairy much occupied even theenking of my tired feet!”

    Lewis grinned. “Of course! Visiting ancient monuments is exactly the same, I think, all over the world! I remember when I went to Stonehenge: it was a wonderful experience and I would not have missed it for the world, but at the time I was chiefly concentrating on the horrid cold I was coming down with, and on trying to keep the ladies I had mistakenly volunteered to escort as sheltered and dry as possible.”

    Nan laughed, and nodded, but said: “I theenk I do not entirely believe that, Colonel Vane: I am persuaded you have a mind above your circumstances! And what ees Stonehenge?” she ended simply.

    Lewis swallowed, but more or less managed to explain.

    “Good gracious,” she said as they mounted the great grey wall, he keeping close behind to make sure she did not stumble on the steep steps. “That sounds vairy preemative, Colonel!”

    “It far predates Roman times,” he agreed.

    “Ye-es...”

    Lewis bit his lip. “You will have seen sights in India which also predate Roman times and which are not near so primitive.”

    “Well, most of the sites have been rebuilt many times,” she replied cheerfully.—Lewis smiled but did not correct her.—“But some of the Hindoo temples are vairy old; l theenk much of the literature ees vairy old indeed.”

    “Yes. Britain,” said Lewis Vane, staring out across his ancestral acres to the English Channel, “is only relatively recently come to civilization.”

    “Yes,” agreed Nan simply. She leaned over the wall, and peered.

    Lewis went up to her side. “Come along a little further. –Here.”

    “I see,” she said with satisfaction, leaning over the wall.

    Lewis had seen the remains of the slot for the portcullis many times. He gazed vacantly out to sea. After some time she straightened, and also appeared to stare at the view. He waited for her to remark upon it but she did not. So he murmured: “What do you think of the view, Lady Benedict?”

    Nan thought it was like the rest of England, very wet and very green. “I like the sea,” she said temperately.

    Lewis had thought it had been something like that. He did not smile, nor criticize her taste. “Yes, but when one realizes that on a clear day one can catch a glimpse of the coast of France, it brings home forcibly the fact that the whole of Europe is very small indeed.”

    Nan nodded silently.

    “There,” he said, coming up close and pointing, with his head beside the bonnet.

    Nan screwed up her eyes. “I’m a leetle short-sighted, I can only see a smudge.”

    “I’m not short-sighted at all, but it’s a smudge to me, too. That’s the Continent.”

    She nodded silently.

    Lewis leant on the wall and said, not looking at her but gazing out across the Channel: “What were you thinking about when you stood for so long at the foot of—” He had almost said “my wall”; he swallowed, and croaked: “The wall?”

    “Were you watching me?” she said in amaze.

    “Well, yes. I was up here. I didn’t realise it was you until you came inside, however.”

    “Oh. Um...” Nan licked her lips and looked uncertainly at him. He didn’t turn his head. “I was eemagining battles,” she said in a small voice.

    “There was a moat in those days.”

    “I know that! –I would have had another moat at the foot of thees hill, also vairy deep!”

    “Mm. When the wall was first built, there was, not another moat, but certainly a very deep ditch at the bottom of the hill, no doubt filled with sharpened stakes. With the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered, the besiegers cannot have had an easy time.”

    “Oh, pooh! The wall ees so low: one scaling ladder and the day would be nigh won!” she cried.

    Lewis perceived that she really had been thinking about battles and sieges. He smiled. “Almost. The later history of the English castles is rather silly, I’m afraid. Most of the real sieges took place when this castle was but an infant, back in the days of the Norman invasion. 1066, thereabouts,” he said with a little smile. “The central keep dates back to before that period, or so the historians claim. During the Middle Ages there were skirmishes of various sorts, but I believe this castle was only really under siege a couple of times in its history.”

    “That ees just as well.”

    Lewis smiled, and did not attempt to refute this insult to his castle. “Mm. There was minor skirmishing nearby between Cavaliers and Roundheads, however.”

    “That was when you had your revolution, no? When Charles I was beheaded?”

    “Yes. The fight was over there, near to that wood,” he said, pointing.

    “So the castle was not involved?”

    “No. Just as well: as far I know the moat was filled in by then and the drawbridge removed.”

    “I wonder wheech side they were on?” said Nan dreamily.

    Lewis repressed a wince. The Vanes had always been rather good at backing both sides against the middle. One brother had fought with Cromwell and another had gone into exile with Charles II. Something very similar had happened in more recent times: there had been a Vane who had been for Bonny Prince Charlie and the Stewart succession but most of the family had supported, if tepidly, German George.

    “I think the castle as such stood firm for the Royalist cause,” he murmured.

    Nan frowned.

    “So your sympathies are with the Nonconformists, Lady Benedict?” he said with a lurking twinkle in his eye.

    “I don’t theenk much of the Established Church een England,” she said shortly.

    Lewis had had a shocked report from the vicar of Underdene Parish about the heathenish goings-on at Sunny Bay: his shoulders quivered but he managed to say steadily: “I don’t know that I do, either. Rationally, and indeed morally, my sympathies would have been with Cromwell, but my upbringing and blood would have urged me to the Cavalier side. I’m very glad I wasn’t born then: what a choice to have to make.”

    “Yes,” said Nan in a tiny voice.—Lewis could see she hadn’t expected him to say anything like that.—“I see exactly what you mean, Colonel,” she added, swallowing: “eet would have been a—a dreadful tug of war for a feeling man, would eet not?”

    “I think so, yes.” He hesitated, and then said: “In especial if one’s brother had elected to fight on the other side.”

    “Yes. –Oh!” she said, looking up at him in horror. “Was that what happened?”

    “So history tells us, yes.” He shrugged just a little. “One cannot tell whether it were expediency or no. Though with the Restoration, the then Viscount Stamforth was certainly offered an earldom by Charles II.”

    “But unless Miss Gump’s guidebook is out of date, eet ees steell a viscounty, ees eet not?”

    The present Viscount Stamforth nodded solemnly.

    “So what happened?” asked Nan in bewilderment.

    Lewis’s eyes twinkled; he explained gravely: “It was said there was a lady in the case. His Majesty had—er—conceived certain expectations, but the Viscount is said to have married her out of hand.”

    “How vairy romantic!” said Nan with a gurgle.

    “Mm. Contemporary reports indicate that they fought like cat and dog all their days—which were long, she bore him fourteen children and lived to be a great-grandmother!”

    Nan laughed, but admitted: “Oh dear! That ees life, I suppose!”

    “Indeed.”

    “So they never got their earldom,” she mused, leaning her back against the outer battlements and looking out over the castle.

    “No. They’ve never done anything to distinguish themselves since,” said Lewis drily.

    Nan missed the dry note: she was looking at the keep. “Ees there a door?” she said abruptly.

    “What? Oh, you mean to the keep itself? More or less: it’s quite interesting. Parts of it are not safe, but we can look at it, if you would like to?”

    She nodded eagerly. Lewis offered her his arm, but she refused it, and descended the steps nimbly without his aid. Though she did let him precede her in the case that she should trip.

    They walked slowly across the grass in the sun.

    “Dom said that on the day they came, there was a beeg wall, and a house that was being pulled down.”

    “Yes. You can see the patch in the grass. That arch to our right is all that is left.”

    “Mm,” said Nan, smiling. “Eet must vastly have eemproved the vista.”

    “Indeed.” Lewis saw with a sinking feeling that as he spoke, Tom Perkiss was emerging from his makeshift lodge. Damnation: if the fellow spoke to him, it would be all up with him! –Why he was so set on continuing the deception with Lady Benedict, he did not pause to ask himself.

    “Oops!” she said with a giggle, squeezing his arm. “I theenk that ees the man,” she hissed, pulling a face, “whom Dom says one must pay many sixpences, een order to see the buildings!”

    After a staggered moment Lewis managed to say: “There is no charge for viewing Stamforth Castle, Lady Benedict.”

    Nan giggled and nodded. “So Miss Gump’s guidebook eendicated! Dom was almost sure that the man had invented eet, but he deed not mind paying, and besides, eet has evened out, een the end!”

    “Mm?” Lewis nodded at Perkiss. Perkiss touched his forelock and gave a sort of bob. Ugh.

    “Yes! For the New Lord, that ees what they call heem een the village, most graciously paid all the sixpences that were owing for our mail!” she gurgled.

    “Uh—oh,” said Lewis with a forced smile. “Yes: evened out, indeed. Excuse me, I’ll just have a word with the fellow.” He hurried off to pre-empt Perkiss.

    “How deed you manage eet?” said Nan with a laugh when he returned.

    He looked at her blankly.

    “I deed not see any sixpences changing hands!” she hissed, as the man, touching his forelock repeatedly, moved off to his odd dwelling place.

    “Oh! Uh—no. I merely said that I understood there was no charge and I would take you round myself.”

    “That was vairy cruel!” said Nan with a gurgle; “but I am glad to be spared hees commentary!”

    “Er—mm.” He took her arm again. “So he favoured your brother with a description of this historic edifice, did he?”

    “I don’t theenk I would go that far! What he deed say was largely eencomprehensible, but Dom gathered that the buildings have not only names but, we theenk, disteenct personalities! That,” she said, nodding to their left, “ees not ‘the old hall’ but ‘Old Hall’; the house which was knocked down was ‘New House’, and that archway off to the right ees not just a leetle arch, but ‘Leetle Arch!’”

    “Mm, it’s the local dialect,” said Lewis with a smile.

    “I understand that; but why do you theenk that that building, which must be much newer than the main part of the castle, ees ‘Old Hall’ and not ‘New Hall’?”

    Lewis smiled. “I can tell you that. There was a misguided attempt on the part of some ancestor—uh—of the new viscount, to build another large hall, I think intended to be a ballroom, as an addition to the house which your brother saw being demolished. It burned down in—er—some time during the last century.”

    “All ees explained!” she said merrily.

    “Mm.” They were approaching the rugged walls of the keep: she fell silent. Lewis did not speak, either: he merely led her round and indicated the entrance with its steep flight of stone steps in the form of a kind of buttress, not expressing his own doubts as to the original function of this feature. Inside, the great tower was a huge, echoing space, but there were vestiges of upper floors left, high on the walls. He listened gravely as Nan favoured him with her opinion as to how the structure would have functioned, disastrously in the main, during a siege.

    “Yes, I think it must have been very like that,” he said tranquilly. “We cannot go up that stone staircase, I’m afraid, it is entirely unsafe. Look, it’s been railed off.”

    Nan peered. “I see. How long would eet be since the keep was actually inhabited, do you know?”

    Lewis did know, more or less. “We-ell... Very many years, I think. Before the inner wall was built there was a dwelling more or less on the spot occupied by the house that was pulled down: fifteenth-century, I think. The inner wall was built in Tudor times: the occupants did not admire the architecture of Old Hall and the chapel, and I think possibly wished to disassociate themselves from imputations of—er—popery." He looked at her sideways but she merely nodded seriously. “There was a Tudor house, built against the new wall. The house which your brother saw demolished was the one which replaced it. I gather that a large part of the trouble was that the new house had been built on the foundations of the old.”

    “Ye-es... Dom said the man said that eet had dry rot, but should eet not rather be wet rot?”

    “Not in English,” replied Lewis simply. He explained: she listened with interest, nodding.

    “But the poor owner!” she said with a sigh.

    “Mm?” They had emerged from the keep and strolled round to its south-facing side: Lewis was looking absently over at the chapel and Old Hall. “Uh—yes. Tell me,” he said with a little smile, “what would you do if you were the new owner and wished to live here?”

    Nan looked about her seriously at the now huge expanse of open space before the keep. “I would not block off thees vista, for a start. Eet ees so striking, when one comes through the dark tunnel, and sees eet!”

    “Yes,” said Lewis, smiling. “It is.”

    “And yet one could not build on to Old Hall, eet would ruin eet... Dom says eet ees one huge room, inside.”

    “Er—mm,” admitted its owner, somewhat taken aback.

    “The guidebook says eet ees closed to the public, but the man showed heem!” added Nan with a giggle. “There ees plenty of room to build, but eet would be a crime to block either the keep or the hall... I theenk I would go to the other side: what are all those buildings?” she asked, looking with disfavour at the huddle of structures behind Little Arch.

    “Outhouses or some such, I think. Accretions over the centuries,” he said, shrugging. And not referring to the splendid stables his great-grandfather had built.

    “I would pull them down. But I would not build against the wall: I theenk that ees quite wrong-headed. I would build,” said Nan, narrowing her eyes, “quite near to the arch, but not abutting eet, a square pavilion—no, two, I theenk, linked by a—I theenk the word ees cloister, but I am not sure. A covered walkway, open at the sides. Two square pavilions,” she said with satisfaction.

    Lewis had to bite his lip in order not to laugh. Though he did not dislike the idea of a square, simple house set near Little Arch, with a view of the tumbling roses and honeysuckle on the ruins of the corner tower. “Mm. You are seeing the place at its very best today, I’m afraid, Lady Benedict. Pavilions with open walkways would not do in our climate.”

    “Oh,” said Nan, her face falling. “No. How seelly of me.”

    “Perhaps one square house, very plain: over here?” he suggested, nodding at the expanse of grass between Little Arch and the great south wall.

    “Ye-es.. Yes! I have eet! A nice square house, and eet should not face the front wall, but eento the middle of the beeg square!” she cried.

    Lewis gave a pleased laugh. “Why, that is it, exactly!’

    They looked excitedly at each other.

    “Then later on, perhaps eef a son were to weesh to live here, you know, or a brother,” said Nan thoughtfully, “one could build another square house—there, you see? Steell not obscuring the view of the keep at all, there ees plenty of room—and that one could be set at right angles to the first.”

    “Yes: with the keep as the centre-piece. That would certainly balance those Perpendicular creations over on the other side.”

    “They are vairy beautiful,” said Nan uncertainly.

    “Yes. But incongruous, I’ve always thought.”

    “They are not—not inner enough... Bother. That eesn’t how to say eet, een English.”

    Very intrigued, Lewis asked her to explain, and Nan endeavoured to describe the way in which one approached the successive layers of courtyards and pavilions in the Red Palace of Ishnapoor and its like.

    “Wonderful,” he said with a sigh.

    “Yes; I weesh you could see eet.”

    He nodded silently.

    “Shall we look at the Perpendicular creations?” she asked with a smile.

    “Certainly.”

    They walked slowly over towards the chapel and the hall.

    “We can’t go into the chapel at the moment, Lady Benedict: it’s being re-gilded. But Old Hall is open. We’ll look at the outside, first, shall we?”

    She agreed and they walked slowly round the chapel. Lewis found she knew very little of Mediaeval European architecture, but she had no difficulty in understanding the functions of the buttresses, flying or otherwise, and nodded seriously as he expounded the principle of the arch.

    “I fear that was very boring,” he said as they rotated back to the front of Old Hall and she gave a loud sigh.

    Nan looked at him in surprise “No, eet was vairy eenteresting. Indian buildings have many more pillars, and I see now that ees why: their architecture has not fully developed the principle of the arch. The Hindoo architecture in especial makes use of small domes, or perhaps you would say cupolas, supported by many pillars. –I shall go to St Paul’s again and re-examine the great dome, when I am next een London,” she added determinedly.

    Lewis nodded, smiling a little. “Shall we?” He opened the door of Old Hall.

    “What deed the man say?” hissed Nan, hanging back.

    The man had said “Out of course, me Lord. And if the lady were wishful for refreshment, I could tell ’em to fetch up a tray for your Lordship.”

    Lewis replied, straight-faced: “The man said that it would be perfectly all right to look, and we shall not be disturbing anyone.”

    “But I theenk Dom said the household ees living een here!” she hissed.

    “There is no-one in here now,” said Lewis firmly, going in. “Come along.”

    Nan tiptoed in cautiously.

    “What do you think?” said Lewis after a while, as she merely stared about her with a stunned expression.

    “Eet’s like Westminster Abbey!” she hissed.

    “Mm. Very much the same period, certainly.”

    “Eet ees magnificent, but one could not possibly live een eet! And eet’s so cold!”

    “I suppose it is, yes,” said Lewis lamely, belatedly recollecting that halfway down the right-hand wall there was a lifelike portrait of an ancestor of Charles II’s time, complete with two spaniels, and a face that, framed by abundant black curls or not, was unmistakably his own ugly mug. Ouch. He took her arm, just in case she should show signs of haring off to look at the paintings.

    She was looking dubiously at the tall windows. “I don’t much care for this painted style of stained glass, myself,” he admitted. “Though the overall effect is striking.”

    Nan nodded. After a moment she said: “The Red Palace of Ishnapoor contains some vairy beautiful inlay work, coloured stones and marble, in the inner pavilions and the mosque—that would be the equivalent of a chapel. Eet ees steell sacred, though the palace ees no longer used. Eet ees Moghul work.”

    “Mm. The chapel here is still sacred, too,” said Lewis seriously, “but normally one can go in. A lady would be expected to wear headgear and a man to remove his.”

    “Yes. Everyone must remove their shoes, een a mosque. And women must go only een their own section. Eet’s vairy eenteresting, isn’t eet?” she said, looking up into his face.

    “Different customs of different religions? Yes, indeed. So the Red Palace of Ishnapoor is a Mussulman edifice?”

    “No, only the inner pavilions. The basic structure ees an old Hindoo fort.”

    “I see. And have you also been into Hindoo temples?”

    “Oh, many times. They are quite different. Though the Hindoos also have rules about the conduct of men and women.”

    “Mm.” Lewis took her hand and tucked it through his arm. “Are they as pretty?”

    Nan smiled. “Some. But I theenk you would say, they are often garish. Also the Buddhist temples.”

    “I see,” said Lewis a trifle limply.

    “Eet ees lovely, but—but quite redundant!” she concluded when they were outside Old Hall in the sunshine, blinking a little.

    “So I think. But what would life be, without the beautiful and redundant?”“

    She nodded fervently.

    Smiling very much, Lewis asked if she would care to stroll right round the outside of the castle, or was she too tired?

    Nan laughed and declared she was not tired at all. They strolled out across the wide lawns, through the deep archway, and onto the sloping expanse of closely mown gold-green grass before the castle walls. Lewis Vane did not disguise from himself that in thus strolling in the sun with her on the sloping greensward before his ancestral home, he was gratifying a whim. Or fulfilling a dream? Something very like that.

    She did not say very much as they circled the castle, and he was also silent, content merely to be with her.

    “I suppose,” she said as they reached the honeysuckle-laden main arch again, “eet all seems normal to you.”

    “Normal?” echoed Lewis, startled. Surely she had not guessed—

    ”Yes. England ees—ees your heritage,” said Nan, frowning.

    “Oh. It is also a part of yours,” he said gently.

    “Yes. But Mamma never said much about eet except that eet was stuffy and boring and rained a lot. And John deed not know...” Nan looked at the calm vista before them and sighed. “Thees. So he could not tell us.”

    “I see. Does it all seem very alien to you, then?” he said, very kindly indeed.

    “Not precisely that, for we always had many books een the house, een English and French as well as Portuguese, and I have read about the English landscape. But... No, eet ees not precisely alien: eet’s more as eef eet—eet was something almost weetheen my grasp, but that I shall never fully be a part of.”

    “I see,” said Lewis, gnawing on his lip. “And—and India?”

    Nan sighed. “That weell always say ‘home’ to me. But I cannot truly go back: eef I deed so I would have to be an English lady, and that would certainly make me an alien there. Or a Portuguese lady, which ees just as bad! But on the other hand I would not care for the life of an Indian woman, either... Een polite society, eet does not matter whether eet be Hindoo or what you call Mussulman, the women are equally...”

    “Shut away?” ventured Lewis.

    “Eet ees that, yes. But they have much power, een the household. I theenk I mean something between ‘shut away’ and ‘sheltered.’“

    Lewis looked down at her dubiously. “I don’t think I quite understand.”

    “One’s rôle ees restreected, even more so than eet ees here, eef one ees a woman from an upper-class home een India. But at the same time, one ees… protected? I theenk I mean protected,” she said with a smothered sigh.

    Lewis was conscious of a strong wish to say: “Let me protect you,” to the short, plumpish little figure in its crumpled print gown and rather bent bonnet.

    “Eet attracts me and repels me at the same time, can you understand that?” she demanded, this time sighing openly.

    “I understand what you mean, but I have no feeling for it.”

    “No,” said Nan with a wry smile. “I theenk that ees because you are a man.”

    Lewis stared unseeingly out towards the sea. “Do you mean to imply that the more sheltered rôle we impose on women, whether or no it be as smothering as the Indian one, is a natural and right one? I had inclined to the opinion that it is created by society.”

    “Society must always protect the mothers of the next generation, no?”

    “Ye-es... But I know any number of intelligent, energetic women who see such attitudes as absurd and outmoded!”

    Nan shrugged a little.

    “Do not dismiss it, just like that!” he said angrily.

    “I thought you were deesmissing eet,” she murmured. “Um... I cannot explain eet, Colonel. At times I feel also that such attitudes are absurd, and that women are every beet as capable as men. Perhaps I would stop short at sending them eento battle, but een every other sphere I theenk they may be just as competent, no? And eet ees not that they could not fight, eet ees that one must exercise some sensible precautions eef one weeshes to preserve the mothers of one’s race!” she said with a sudden smile.

    “Of course.”

    “But at other times,” said Nan with a sigh, “I feel vairy strongly the tug of the life of the zenana.”

    “Er—I’m sorry?”

    “What you call the hareem,” she said, wrinkling her nose a little. “The women’s quarters, and all that that implies.”

    “You—you experience both these feelings?” he groped.

    “Yes. Both impulses. Equally strongly.”

    “But—” Lewis broke off. He looked at her sideways.

    She was staring out to sea. Her short, curved upper lip was beaded with sweat and her cheeks were a little flushed.

    “I see,” he said hoarsely. “At least—well, I don’t see,” he admitted lamely. “But I—I shall try to understand the contradiction.”

    Her bosom heaved in a deep sigh. “Yes: try,” she said flatly.

    Lewis saw that he had said quite the wrong thing. He was terribly overcome. “What—what did I say?” he groped. “I was truly trying to understand what you meant!”

    Nan licked her lips nervously. “I theenk I want you to say that you weell try, not to understand, but to accept that eet ees so, Colonel. That—that I am so.”

    “Yes,” he said, swallowing hard. “I see.”

    They were silent, both looking blankly before them.

    Nan drew a deep breath. “I must go. Ruth weell be wondering what has become of me, and eef Jimmy sleeps any longer een the sun, I fear he weell have a shocking headache.”

    “Wait,” he said hoarsely, grasping her arm, as she was about to move off toward the dozing boy and the trap, drawn up in the scant shade of a swag of honeysuckle a little way along the wall.

    “What?” she said, looking up at him with what Lewis no longer felt sure was a docile expression.

    “Much has been written in Europe literature of—of the fickleness and contrariness of—of woman,” he said hoarsely.

    “Yes,” she flatly, giving him what he was almost sure was a look of sheer dislike.

    “But I wish you to understand that I—I am not making the assumption that you were endeavouring either to excuse or to explain yourself in those terms. You were not making some sort of plea for extenuation on the grounds of your fickle female temperament, were you?”

    “I was not making any sort of plea at all.”

    “No. I think I once said that neither of us need consider ourselves fit to judge the other?”

    She nodded silently.

    “Yes. I still feel that, very strongly.”

    “Good,” she said flatly.

    Lewis hesitated.

    Nan said grimly: “You were asking me before what I was theenking about when I was standing out here. The sorts of theengs I was eemagining had nothing to do weeth nice English ladies or nice Portuguese ladies, or nice Indian ladies, either!”

    “No,” he said in a low voice.

    Nan pulled her arm out of his grasp. She walked towards the trap, but stopped, plucking a piece of honeysuckle.

    Lewis came up behind her. “What do you want of life?” he said baldly.

    Nan looked down at the honeysuckle. “I don’t know. What eet cannot give me, I theenk. I want to be free to go off to India and try my fortune, as Papa deed.” She paused. “I suppose, I want to be a man.”

    Lewis’s nostrils flickered. “Yes,” he said. He hesitated, and then turned and walked steadily back inside his castle.

    He climbed up onto the battlements again, and watched her until she was out of sight. She did not look round, once. He sighed. He understood, more or less, what she felt, and sympathized with her to a considerable degree. But all the same... Well, more than likely she had had no notion how much he would be hurt by her saying such a thing. In fact doubtless she had not given his feelings in the matter a second’s thought.

    In this he was quite correct. Nan felt uneasily that she had been led by the sense of easy companionship that seemed to have developed between them during the visit to the castle into betraying a side of herself to Colonel Sour-Puss that she had never intended him to know about. Him or any other English gentleman! She did not actually convince herself that Lewis Vane was just another conventional English gentleman; but on the other hand, she did not dwell on what his feelings might have been at hearing her utter such sentiments.