Fool's Gold (A Lord Ambrose Mystery) Page 9

  “It is a flask, surely…”

  She knew what it was. The flask from which that wretched young man, Cyriack Jesmond, had drawn his last draft, the final object that had touched his lips before death itself.

  “Is there poison left in it?”

  She gave a shudder as I thrust the thing into my cloak.

  “Only the dregs. But I’ll be damned careful not to let Belos get it into the silver pantry at Malfine, I assure you!”

  That was all that was said at the time, and we rode on, until the familiar graceful shape of Malfine, the great sweep of the house, its white columns and pediments, was glimpsed through the trees in a soft dawn of tender green and blue. We cantered past the gleaming gray stretch of the lake, startling deer who had come to drink in the early hours of the morning. A white heron, motionless as a statue, stood upon the small island in the lake, where I used to splash and swim as a boy.

  While Elisabeth climbed the flight of steps to the great classical entrance porch, I took Zaraband around to the stables. The groom, Pellers, appeared in the stable-yard and, entrusting Zaraband to his hands, I strode again into my inheritance.

  There was a frantic barking as I entered Malfine, and then a rushing and flurry of paws and feathery fur which finally disentangled itself into the shapes of two separate animals, each bounding eagerly on either side of me as I crossed the great Italian marble entrance-hall, a vast black-and-white checker-board, on which their claws scraped and pattered. Their collars were of gilded Moorish leather, as outlandish as their names, for Queen Nubia and King Taharka were Salukis, an unrefusable gift from that Nubian potentate whose daughter Sandys and I had contrived to rescue upon a time. Salukis are Arab hounds, fast as the desert winds: some say they were the hunting-dogs of the Pharaohs. They were used in the Arab kingdoms of Spain, in that green terrain of the Guadalquivir where the nobles of Córdoba rode for their sport alongside a river as bright as a scimitar, accompanied by dogs with ears curled like the clusters of hyacinths and eyes as clear as dew.

  But, to be more prosaic, if you will consider a sort of golden-plumed greyhound, you have the type of the beast. You may consider, also, the apoplectic astonishment with which they are greeted in the English countryside. “By God, sir, what’s that? That’s no Jack Russell!” said Squire Anderton, whose lands march with mine, as Nubia came lazily bounding after him one day. “Damn ye, you can’t ride to hounds with that!”

  No, and you can’t outrun them neither, as Anderton discovered a few minutes later when the freakish beast suddenly turned into a streak of honey-colored lightning and sank her long ivory teeth in his britches.

  Heigh-ho, what sport! “Tally-ho, sir!” cried I.

  But these joyous memories are setting my narrative aside.

  *

  A day or so later, returning from an early-morning ride, I led Zaraband back to her stall, and observed that old Dobbie, or as Belos preferred to call him. Barbary, was in his accustomed stall. Belos, then, must have returned from Richmond. No doubt he would be full of actorish doings—even, perhaps, actorish longings. I doubted whether he could in reality long remain contented with playing the part of my manservant. The impulse that had prompted him to join a troupe of players, and then to accompany them to Greece in an ill-omened adventure—that impulse could not have been entirely destroyed by the stifling and lonely life he had led, buried deep in the English countryside, since he had brought me back scarce half-alive to Malfine, which was then masterless.

  On that fine morning, there were the Salukis and myself clattering through the entrance-hall, and there was Belos, bearing a tray with silver coffee-pot and accoutrements, emerging from the region of the kitchens and making for the morning room. He danced neatly through the animals and sailed into the room in uncannily dignified fashion.

  The long morning room we had fitted up a little since Elisabeth’s arrival, that is to say, it had been swept, the pier glasses were cleared of grime, and new hangings of almond-green silk were spoken of, at least between Elisabeth and Belos. The coffee was placed on a table before a small tapestry sofa where faded roses and puffed-out cherubs gallivanted, and here Elisabeth took her seat and prepared to pour, while I admired the chestnut glint of her hair and the turn of her white neck. Her long legs were promisingly outlined in the satiny folds of her dress as it settled over her thighs with a soft glissade. But I bowed to convention and did not follow my inclinations. At least, not there and then.

  “Belos, tell me of Kean’s funeral rites at Richmond,” said I. “Was it an occasion of high drama?”

  “Oh yes, my lord! One of the most splendid productions ever witnessed—they must have rehearsed for days! After all, he was the greatest actor of our time; there’s no disputing that, though he had many envious rivals, of course. But it could not have been better planned than if Mr. Kean had stage-managed it himself. The coffin was on public view in Mr. Kean’s house before the ceremony so that all the mourners might file past and pay tribute, and then it was accompanied to the church by such a procession! Beadles, mutes, pages, walking along—all in the most sumptuous black—and the carriage-horses plumed, of course! And the actors—why, all the leading members of the profession were in attendance. Macready himself was one of the pall-bearers. And there were first-rate people from all the London theatres, from Drury Lane and Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells.”

  “And the music?” inquired Elisabeth. “Was there not beautiful music played upon the organ at such an occasion?”

  There was a sadness in her voice; perhaps she thought for a moment, as did I, of the perfunctory funeral we had recently attended, of a man far from home, for whom there had been few expressions of grief. Odd, how things impress themselves upon our minds. It was perhaps the friendless nature of the rites for young Kelsoe that operated on my mind.

  But Belos was answering Elisabeth. “Oh yes, the most solemn notes of Purcell and Handel—and singers from the opera, in such fine voice, too! It was a great spectacle, I can tell you that. And I met many acquaintances…”

  His voice seemed to hesitate here. There was something more, I thought. Was there an undercurrent of regret in his words? They say acting is a fever in the blood—an infection that can never be thrown off, the taste for that tawdry, lionized, dangerous existence. Yet, looking at Belos’ quiet exterior, who would think he had such a longing in him?

  Speculation was suspended. There suddenly came such a menagerie of cries from the farther end of the room—of spitting and howling and barking—that further conversation was impossible and I jumped up to investigate.

  The heavy brocade swathes at one of the tall windows appeared to be in motion—indeed, to be boiling with activity. Beneath it, Nubia and Taharka were leaping frantically, their claws shredding great rents in the old silk, and Taharka’s nose appeared to have a bloody scratch upon it. Suddenly, at the top of the curtains, was a phantasmagorical black shape, hissing and spitting and scurrying up to the safety of the pole, where it sat and contemplated the bounding furies below.

  “Good God, where did this come from?”

  Belos advanced swiftly down the room, giving a discreet over-butlerish sort of cough that was an inadequate comment upon the turbulent scenario.

  The cat moved—no, that is too commonplace a verb—it positively liquefied down and leaped on Belos’ shoulder, where it dug its claws in, while the dogs pressed about, yet sensing that their quarry was now safe, and making no further serious pursuit.

  “This is Cordillo, my lord.”

  “Cordillo? Belos, explain yourself.”

  “Edmund Kean’s cat, my lord.”

  For once wordless, I flung myself down on a sofa and gestured for explanation.

  “When I took my place with the others who went to file around the great man’s coffin, I saw the cat hiding in the empty grate. You could scarce make it out, of course, just two eyes were to be seen, staring out of the blackness. I asked one of the beadles standing near the coffin about it, and he tried to
give the creature a crack with his stick—‘nasty evil thing,’ he called it. Then he told me the story. ‘Mr. Kean had the cat just before he died, and since then it’s been lurking nearby—everyone says it’s brought ill luck.’ He called for a housemaid to chase it out, but the animal retreated to the interior of the grate and would have made to climb up inside the chimney. ‘I’ll light the fire and smoke it out,’ says the maid. ‘We’ve never fed it, but it won’t go away—horrid beast that it is!’ And she went off to fetch some coals, but I ran after her. ‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ said I. ‘Give me an old basket or something of the sort.’ So she found me an old wicker creel, the kind that fishermen use, and I baited my trap with a scrap of meat.”

  “Belos, you deliberately caught this…this panther?”

  “Yes, my lord, although you exaggerate as always.”

  “Yes, Ambrose, it is very true, you do. Panther, indeed!” This was from Elisabeth. “But, Belos, do proceed.”

  “Very well, madam. The cat would not have come into the trap for the meat alone; he came and snuffed at my hand first, and then quite quietly went into the basket, like a tame creature. So I took him to the funeral with me, putting the creel under a pew, and he was quiet as a black saint, except for howling a little with the hymns, but so did Madame Scaglini from the Theatre Royal who was standing nearby, so what was one wail the more? No one noticed anything amiss, at any rate.”

  “And then you brought the creature back to Malfine. Belos, has it not occurred to you what a menagerie I have assembled here already? There is Zaraband, there are the dogs, there is Miss Westmorland’s old pony—why do you suppose I should add to my woes with this heathen creature?”

  “Surely there is no shortage of space, my lord?”

  This was impossible to deny, considering the vast acreage of Malfine.

  “Kean was a great animal-lover; I heard he kept a pet lion at one time.”

  This was from Elisabeth, who had risen from the table.

  “I suppose we must be thankful we do not have Leo running through the galleries here.”

  Belos evidently took this as a sign of weakening and pressed his advantage.

  “And Cordillo will keep to my room, my lord, if you desire it.”

  “It is not so much what I desire, Belos, as what the dogs will find bearable. And what did you say of ill luck? Did this animal not bring bad fortune upon its previous owner?”

  A voice from the other end of the room intervened. “Shame on you, Ambrose, if you let superstition guide your actions! Let reason prevail!”

  Elisabeth was in the act of pouring cream into a saucer. Clearly, the cause was lost.

  But I had been right in one respect. There was something more that Belos had acquired at Richmond, apart from a great black monster of a cat, although it was not at all what I had expected to hear.

  After dinner that evening, he and I were on the terrace overlooking the sweep of overgrown lawn, and Belos resumed his account of what had happened at Edmund Kean’s funeral. He told me of the—I almost called it a party—it was, of course, the assembly of the mourners after the funeral, the grand equivalent of the subdued little gathering in the gloomy hall at Jesmond Place.

  From Belos’ words, I formed the picture of a most lively group, not at all funereal, a sea of lustrous raven silks and satins, along with sable ostrich trimmings, umbrageous lace mantles, tenebrous pelisses and sweeping cloaks of deepest sooty velvet. Thus, somberly yet bravely clad, members of the theatrical profession who had not seen one another for years came together. Broken Dogberries, aged Capulets, who had been touring with small companies from Glasgow to Brecon, great Portias who had played at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, several elderly Hamlets—a confusion of Kembles—all, it seemed, had kissed and chattered and trilled and boomed in one feathery befrilled froth that spilled out of the church and through the streets of Richmond.

  “And under a tiny crepuscular chapeau peeped the delicate face of Miss Fanny Kemble, Juliet to the life—”

  “I hope not to the death, Belos.”

  “It was a most serious occasion, and perhaps your lordship will be pleased to refrain from your customary levity.”

  “I’m sorry, Belos. What was it, ‘crepuscular chapeau…’? Oh yes—she had a black bonnet. Do proceed.”

  “My lord, I happened to mention something to a friend—an actor whom I knew before I left these shores for Greece, who had some success at the Theatre Royal in Bristol and also traveled to Richmond for the funeral. We had paused for a drink in a tavern near the river, and I told him of Malfine and my present position.”

  Here I half-expected Belos to say that he had been persuaded to return to the theatrical life, that he had succumbed to the lure of the flaring lights and the grease-paint, but this was not what transpired.

  “We recounted our experiences in those years since we had last met—he had some success, I believe, as the juvenile lead in the plays of Mr. Sheridan—and as I was telling him of my new life here, I mentioned that I was not required at home for a few days, because my master had betaken himself to stay at Jesmond Place.

  “‘Jesmond?’ said he. ‘Now where have I heard that name before?’

  “‘It is an old West Country name,’ I answered.

  “‘No, I mean I am sure I have heard it in another connection—to do with our profession. But I cannot now recall what it was. Perhaps someone else at the Theatre Royal might recollect it.’

  “Well, he racked his brains, but could not then remember, and it is rather surprising he could recall anything at all, so fine were the hospitalities and the entertainments oi the occasion. However, I mention it to your lordship; rather an odd incident, was it not?”

  “Yes, it was indeed, Belos. What on earth could such a quiet old-established family as the Jesmonds have to do with the theatre? As for Lady Jesmond, I believe Sir Antony did marry out of the usual circle of suitable country cabbages, but he found her, I believe, in an inn.”

  I brushed this away, without thinking more of it, so taken was I by Belos’ account of the mourners. All the more discredit to me. One should never be so seduced by gorgeous language as to miss a hard little grain lurking in its lustrous depths. And something beyond that, lying deeper still than the small nugget of fact: a shade of feeling on the part of the speaker which I, preoccupied as I was by levity at the account of the preposterous funereal splendors, missed at the time. I found it only in retrospect, when I considered that conversation later on, after the many troubles and fears engendered by the strange events which I now relate.

  When I rode out next morning, I should perhaps have turned Zaraband’s head toward Bristol and made some theatrical inquiries, but regrettably I did not attach enough weight to what Belos had told me. Instead, we went in the clear contrary direction.

  We took the road to Oxford.

  Part Two

  OXFORD INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 11

  Now, I know it is the fashion for men such as I, Ambrose Malfine, that is to say, those of wealth and background, to indulge in cheerful reminiscence of their college days, to speak with fondness of “m’tutor,” or of the college pastimes, such as playing cricket for velvet caps, or throwing featherbeds into fountains, or piddling in the Sheldonian Theatre. I cannot join in such a chorus, since I lasted but one term at the University, and then high-tailed it overseas like the scamp I was.

  In short, I ran away.

  I cast the dust of Oxford from off my feet.

  And I have never before nor afterward made such a wise and sensible decision, no, not if I had studied upon it for a twelvemonth altogether and consulted all the philosophers in the kingdom. Nothing in my education has ever done me anything like as much good as the running away from it.

  On this fine morning, I grant you, Oxford was a city from which none but an idiot would desire ever to depart, much less exchange for the violent and savage world within which I had become deep immersed scarce one month after quitting the venerable spi
res. While my contemporaries were nesting in their ancient collegiate dreys and burrows, while they were enjoying the scholarly pursuits proper to their station, viz. whores and waxwork shows, bawds, balls and boxing-matches, Livy and lotteries, dice, Diodorus and drunkenness, I was learning quite a different trade.

  I had been a young man full of ideals, which even now have power to seize my brain and grip my heart, though fighting for them nearly killed me. I had enlisted in a heroic struggle, the fight of Greece for independence, and found my learning must be of butchery and treachery, not Theodorus but throat-cutting, hunger instead of Hesiod. The study of anatomy, however, was much in evidence. I became practiced in chirurgery: that of slitting living arteries. The penalty for failure in those particular examinations was death.

  I scraped a pass.

  I have, of course, at one time or another, studied the more usual academic subjects, but although in my wandering quest for knowledge I sat at the feet of scholars from Prague to Salonika, there was one particular area of study which now explained my unsentimental journey to my alma mater. For there was something about the deaths of those two young men at Jesmond Place which could perhaps be resolved by this expedition—and resolve the mystery I must: otherwise Elisabeth would forever be uneasy concerning the welfare of Lady Jesmond. Already, I had perceived, Elisabeth was torn between her feelings for me and her loyalty to her new-found friend—for so, it appeared, Clara Jesmond had become, having progressed from the role of Miss Anstruther’s mere employer through her very vulnerability, which my dear and warmly-disposed beloved evidently pitied with her tender and affectionate heart.

  And so, by many a twining and turning, I found myself this morning, descending Headington Hill toward the city which I had quit so many years ago.

  Zaraband and I had stopped the night at Wheatley, a place of nothing but inns, serving the travelers between London and Oxford. I desired to catch a glimpse of the city from Shotover Hill, and we approached it over the packed red soil of the roadway through what remained of an ancient forest, still coppiced by the colleges for their timber. Footpads were said to haunt the lower slopes of Shotover, along with the foxes, and I had heard a story once that Shelley sailed a toy ship on the black water filling the ugly old clay-pits dug deep into its sides. He must, like myself, have played truant from his studies, although unlike myself he did not quit Oxford of his own volition.