As I rose to conduct them around, I reflected that Lord Boring, in common with Mr. Fredericks’s mother, treated that difficult young man with an amused indulgence. This was understandable in Mrs. Fredericks, who, as his mother, was more or less required to love him, but less so in Lord Boring, who was not. Perhaps Lord Boring found Mr. Fredericks’s rudeness amusing, as medieval kings were said to be entertained by the coarse and impertinent behavior of their jesters.
“Are you and your cousin intimately acquainted, Lord Boring?” I enquired. We stood a little apart from Mr. Fredericks as he paused to examine the least moth-eaten of the tapestries. “Did you grow up together?”
“No, not entirely, though from time to time he would come to stay with us, of course.”
From what I knew of the former Lord Boring’s attitude, there was no “of course” about it. It cast a surprisingly good light on the Westings—I should not have expected them to find the son of a shop clerk an acceptable playmate for the heir to a barony.
“Perhaps,” I hazarded a guess, “he saved your life?”
A quick smile came and went across Lord Boring’s face.
“Almost—but no, not exactly,” he said. “I am very fond of him. And of course, we are associated in our overseas interests—he looks out for my investments in India and so on.” He lowered his voice. “I owe him a great deal, more than he will allow me to say. He’s a good fellow, Hugh is, tho’ not very polished, I know,” he said, as we watched Mr. Fredericks poking a finger through a moth hole, thereby enlarging it.
I understood, or supposed I did. Lord Boring had employed this socially inept backdoor cousin and now felt responsible for him. Presumably Mr. Fredericks was a faithful steward of his master’s affairs, and Lord Boring was no doubt relieved to be able to fulfill a family obligation as well as to safeguard his own interests.
“Oh undoubtedly,” I said. The “good fellow” had just detached at least two feet of fringe off the bottom of the tapestry while attempting to tug it into place. My eyes narrowed. Someday I might have to sell those tapestries so that we could eat.
“That wants sewing back on,” said Mr. Fredericks, handing the strip of material to me. “What’s behind this door?”
“A passageway to the servants’ quarters and the kitchen offices,” I replied, but he opened it nonetheless. Unwilling to inflict this person on our long-suffering cook, no doubt enjoying a well-earned rest after whipping up all that cream, I suggested, “Perhaps you would like to follow me up to the minstrel gallery. We have a great many family portraits and other paintings, some of which are said to be quite fine.” In fact, most of the paintings left were portraits, as landscapes and still lifes are easier to sell than ancestors.
The walls of Crooked Castle are pierced, more or less at random, with arrow slits. In a real fortress these small openings, just large enough to accommodate an arrow angled towards the ground, would have allowed archers inside to take potshots at an enemy outside without providing a target themselves. In an unreal fortress like Crooked Castle, their only function is to allow the winds from off the North Sea free access to the interior. One such breeze rolled down the stairs to meet us as we mounted. Mr. Fredericks hugged himself and shivered. “You ought to have Rumford fireplaces installed—it’s like an icehouse in here,” he said.
“Oh, that’s only because you’re so used to the tropics, you know,” said His Lordship, smiling bravely at me as the gust of air lifted the hair on his forehead. “Fredericks has been ill,” he confided, as the gentleman in question moved ahead of us to examine the portraits. “He came back from India a few weeks ago and on the voyage home he acquired a chill on the liver that he’s finding difficult to shake.”
“I see.” I spoke over my shoulder to His Lordship as I hastened after our other guest, who was scratching with his fingernail at the gold leaf on the frame of my grandfather’s image. I’d have thought that even a chill on the liver would be pleased to be excused from Mr. Fredericks’s company, but apparently not.
When I reached him, Mr. Fredericks was looking down at a small object in the palm of his hand. He held out a curlicue of gold, broken off from the frame, saying accusingly, “Shoddy workmanship. However,” he went on, pointing at a painting I had loved from infancy, a small picture of a brown and black dog playing with a ball, “that is by George Stubbs. Take care of it. It may be worth something someday. Or not, of course—Stubbs turned them out by the boatload, you know—but it is a pleasant little thing. The others, of course . . .” He shrugged.
With enormous restraint, I did not remark that, up until today, the paintings had not suffered any damage in my lifetime. “Allow me to show you the view from the parapet,” I said, in hopes of distracting him. What harm could he do on the battlements, out in the open air?
“These portraits ought to be cleaned,” he said, ignoring my suggestion and fiddling with the painting of the little dog. “They are shockingly dirty. Let me show you . . . I believe that a penknife inserted here under the frame would allow us to see—”
“Mr. Fredericks!” I cried. “Please! I am exceptionally fond of that picture.” I looked to Lord Boring for assistance, but he was some distance away, examining a portrait of my great-great-great-aunt on my father’s side. He turned, however, and was about to remonstrate, when Mr. Fredericks began groping in his pocket for a knife.
“Oh, never fear, I shan’t harm it,” said that gentleman.
I gasped and, struck by inspiration, clutched at my throat. “I—I require some air or I shall faint! I must ascend to the roof. I pray you, gentlemen, follow me at once!” And I pulled the picture from Mr. Fredericks’s grasp, set it down, and staggered towards the stair to the rooftop walkway.
Mr. Fredericks looked rather startled, but followed me meekly enough, once Lord Boring gave him a push in the proper direction. Once out on the parapet, with its splendid view of the sea, however, it occurred to me that the drop from where we stood to the beach below was prodigious. I eyed him nervously and moved a safe distance away. The danger, however, was not to my person but to my family’s property; he began prodding at the massive stone making up the battlement in front of him, trying to see if he could pry it from its position. (“This one’s loose,” was his comment.)
“Fredericks, stop that at once,” said Lord Boring. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.” And he pulled his cousin bodily back from the edge.
“I? I have done damage?”
“You have. And if you knock that stone over you’ll be held criminally liable for doing to death a whole family of fisher folk.”
Indeed, peering over the edge I could see our tenants, John Snyder and his sons, dragging their boat and nets onto the beach far below us. I gasped at their peril.
“Gentlemen, indeed I pray you! Shall we not go downstairs? And—and—” I wracked my brain for some activity which would engross Mr. Fredericks’s energies without resulting in murder or mayhem.
“And we shall take our leave,” finished Lord Boring. “We have trespassed on your kindness for far too long.” As we moved towards the staircase he addressed me privately. “My apologies. I shall ensure that reparations are made for any harm our visit has caused.”
Mr. Fredericks was still looking out to sea. “Yes, do let’s go down. I was examining the cliff face that supports this portion of the castle earlier, and it is my opinion that a good storm could fatally weaken it. That moat was a foolish idea of your great-grandfather’s—it undercuts the integrity of the ground this building stands on. The only thing that prevents the waters of the moat from breaking through are two thin stone walls, and a major flood could breach them. All this”—he gestured about us—“is quite apt to fall into the sea at any time.”
Most thankfully we arrived downstairs without further mishap, Mr. Fredericks complaining fretfully that he had not been shown over the whole of the property. “I have not inspected the dungeons yet, Sidney, and you know how I wished to.”
Lord Boring darted a s
wift look at my face and, smiling, said, “Another time, Hugh. I fear that today Miss Crawley might show us in and then forget to let us out again.”
To my surprise, Mr. Fredericks apologized for any alarm he may have caused—“I am enthusiastic, you see,” he explained—and then he sought out my little brother, solemnly shaking hands in farewell. “I am sorry I made you cry,” he said. Alexander rewarded him with a large smile and skipped alongside him in a friendly fashion all the way out to the drawbridge, prattling happily and begging his new friend to visit us again as soon and as often as possible.
I myself could not help but wonder if entertaining Lord Boring would mean entertaining Mr. Fredericks as well. As delightful as I found His Lordship, that would be a rather heavy price to pay for his company.
The next morning a stone mason appeared at our gate, saying he had been instructed to secure the stone that so nearly had crashed down upon our tenants’ heads, with the compliments of our new neighbors. Greengages questioned him and then brought him along to me.
“I—I beg leave to send my thanks to Lord Boring,” I said, amazed but grateful.
“Yes, miss,” he said. “Where am I to begin?”
After I had set him to work, a young woman with a basket was shown in. Greengages explained that this was Susan, an expert seamstress employed by Mrs. Westing, who had been dispatched to mend our tapestry.
“Oh, and miss?” added Susan. “This basket here is for you.”
I took the basket from her, puzzled. Inside lay one of Lord Boring’s cards atop a quantity of fine woolen fabric. It said, “Hoping this will make some restitution.” Folding back the cloth I found that I was looking into two enormous brown eyes. “It—it’s a dog!” I said stupidly.
“Yes, miss,” agreed Susan. “A puppy. Two months old today.”
I sank down into a chair. What on earth was I to do with a puppy? Yet another mouth to feed!
“My—my thanks to His Lordship,” I said.
The tiny black and brown creature—a perfect copy of the dog in the Stubbs painting—had no doubts as to what I should do with him. He climbed out of his nest in the basket and began the arduous journey up to my lap, pawing and scrabbling with his fat little legs. He looked up at me, reproachful at my lack of response, and for a moment I thought I glimpsed a will of steel in those sweet, rather bulbous brown eyes. Obediently, I helped him up and, with a loud sigh, he curled into a ball and fell asleep.
Evidently I now had a dog.
Greengages reappeared, breathing hard from this unusual exercise. “This person says he’s come to clean and repair the pictures,” he said.
“Well then, I suppose you had better show him to the picture gallery, hadn’t you?”
Perhaps, I decided, entertaining Mr. Fredericks was not without its benefits, if His Lordship always felt the need to make good the damages caused by his friend.
6
THE AMOUNT OF FINANCIAL assistance ladies can properly receive from a gentleman unrelated to them is limited. During the week following the first visit by Lord Boring and his cousin, workers swarmed over the castle: the drawbridge was repaired, the battlement stonework secured, the tapestries mended (save the largest and most dilapidated, which I was mending myself), and the paintings cleaned. This was delightful, but the expense on Lord Boring’s part could barely be justified as reparations for the damage Mr. Fredericks had caused. The drawbridge, for instance, had not been harmed, but it was indeed broken and since so much other work was being done, we allowed the repair to be made. But when the stone mason proposed rebuilding the fireplace in the small sitting room to a more efficient, modern design we felt it necessary to refuse, however regretfully.
Lord Boring and Mr. Fredericks called again, on their own this time, as most of their other visitors had departed. In obedience to a sharp look from His Lordship, Mr. Fredericks remained in his seat and broke nothing save a toy of Alexander’s, a small model of a horse and cart. However, as he spent the rest of the visit repairing it, pulling wire, pins, and other oddments from his pockets and modifying the fixed wheels so that they rotated like those on a real cart, and adding reins and a real horsehair mane and tail, we could not complain. Indeed, Alexander brought him all his other toys, in hopes that he would break them too.
“You must allow us to express our indebtedness for the repairs made to the castle,” I said in a low voice to Lord Boring, bending over my embroidery so as to avoid his eyes, “which have encompassed far more than was injured by Mr. Fredericks.” I halted, wishing that I possessed a tactful tongue. I could have expressed thanks without mentioning Mr. Fredericks—I did not want to sound as if I were reproaching Lord Boring for his friend’s loutish behavior.
“I pray you, speak no more of it to me. I did nothing of any importance,” said Lord Boring, looking rather self-conscious. We both glanced out of the corners of our eyes at Mr. Fredericks, who was running the little cart back and forth on the carpet, testing out the new wheels and entirely oblivious to our embarrassment on his behalf. As His Lordship seemed not to want further thanks, I changed the subject.
“The dog,” I ventured, looking down at the animal in my lap, “is affectionate. Remarkably so, in fact.”
Indeed, the dog had proved to be faithful almost to a fault. He had taken up the attitude that he should accompany me at all times, even on the most private of occasions. When I sat, he was on my lap. When I walked, he was at my heels. If I made any effort to exclude him, he behaved as if I had struck him. His small face became a picture of woe: his soft lips wobbled and his enormous brown eyes bulged tragically at me.
While my stepsisters shared a bed (mostly to keep warm—there were eighteen bedrooms in the castle, some even furnished with beds, so there was no need to share from lack of accommodation), I had been accustomed to sleeping alone since childhood. The dog refused to allow this arrangement to continue: the moment I lay down he would commence pawing at the side of the bed and whining, demanding to be lifted up to join me. Once his desire was achieved he would stretch out, managing (tho’ very small in his person) to take up most of the available space.
Sometimes while I slept he was stricken by an overwhelming compulsion to express his devotion, an urge frustrated by the fact that nearly all of my anatomy was submerged in bedclothes. He would therefore drape himself over my head and sigh into my ear, causing me to dream of being engulfed by an infatuated fur-lined hat. Most mornings I found that I had been cuddled and cosseted right up to the edge of the bed and was on the brink of falling off.
In addition, he snored.
However, as irksome as this may have been, I will confess that on those few occasions when I awoke and did not feel his little body pressed up next to mine, I sat bolt upright feeling quite offended until I had located him on the bed.
At my words Mr. Fredericks looked up from his repairs to my brother’s toy. “Oh, do you like him? He’s from an excellent stud. He ought to be a fine animal when he is grown.”
This being by far the most amiable remark Mr. Fredericks had ever addressed to me, I took care to respond graciously. Apparently he had assisted Lord Boring in the procurement and choice of the puppy—to judge by his behavior one might think he alone was responsible—and when I asked a few questions about proper feeding and handling, he proved well equipped to answer them.
“And what is the puppy’s name?” enquired Lord Boring.
I blushed. I’d thought of calling him “Sidney,” but feared this would be too presuming. And should Lord Boring and I ever find ourselves on intimate enough terms to address one another by our first names it would be quite confusing, as well.
“‘Dog’ is what I mostly call him,” I admitted.
The assembled company began to propose names. Prudence and Charity favored such suggestions as Trouble and Nuisance. I will confess that he did leave a puddle in their room, but as I myself cleaned it up as soon as it was discovered I did not see why they should so dislike him.
“Call him ‘Fid
o’—meaning faithful, you know—since he is so attached to you,” said Mr. Fredericks in the tone of voice which ends a discussion. “And now, Boring, we must go. Or I must, at any rate. You may wish to waste the entire rest of the afternoon, but I’ve business to attend to. Good-bye, Fido,” he said to the dog, which wagged its tail in reply.
“But—Lord Boring!” I said. “I have not yet heard your suggestion for the dog’s name.”
“Oh, I expect Fredericks is right and you ought to call the little fellow Fido.”
Upon hearing the word Fido, the traitorous dog wagged its tail again.
“There, you see?” said Mr. Fredericks, a sudden smile lighting up his narrow face.
My mother added, “Fido is a lovely name. Good dog, Fido,” and the dog wriggled all over in a paroxysm of delight.
I sighed. Evidently the dog had a name. And it was a name chosen by Mr. Fredericks, rather than by the man who had given him to me.
“Good-bye, Master Alexander,” said Mr. Fredericks, presenting the much improved toy to the boy. “See that you take care of that mare and her equipage,” he admonished, “and don’t haul in too hard on those reins or she’ll bolt on you. Miss Hrrm,” he said to me, “that thread you are using is poor quality; it will break under stress, and if it does not, it will rot in these damp, salty conditions.” He turned to his friend. “Boring, I’ll see about the horses.” Whereupon he got up and left the room without a word to his hostess, or to anyone else.
Lord Boring made his farewells properly, like a gentleman. When they had gone, I could not help but cry out, “Why, oh why does His Lordship suffer the company of that odious man?”
Keeping the Castle Page 5
