Old Hall, New Hall

by Michael Innes

  ‘What Olivia called the swap?’

  Lumb nodded. ‘Yes. But she admitted it was all quite obscure – and also rather scandalous. The bet was that each brother was to bring back to Old Hall, within twelve months, the masterpiece of his career as a collector.’

  ‘Edward Jory collected things too?’

  Lumb shook his head. ‘Edward didn’t collect things. Edward collected w-w-women.’

  Again there was a long, serious silence between the young men. Being in love, they viewed the frailty of Edward Jory with tolerance indeed, but at an infinite remove. ‘A Regency hang-over,’ Clout presently said.

  ‘Yes. And B-B-Byronic stuff. Beautiful Circassians, and that sort of thing. The isles of Greece. It was from one of them, in fact, that the story says Edward brought his exhibit.’

  ‘And Joscelyn?’

  ‘A tomb from the Caucasus. And a friend was going to decide between them. Do you know about ancient Caucasian burial customs?’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’ Clout was momentarily impatient. ‘And I don’t believe you did either, Lumb, until this business hit you.’

  ‘P-p-perfectly true. Well, it appears they didn’t attend to Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Browne?’

  Lumb nodded. ‘Let monuments and rich fabrics, not riches, adorn men’s ashes. It seems that in the Caucasus great ladies had all their jewellery buried with them, as well as their best frocks. What Joscelyn boned – it seems the right word – was a whole tip-top set-up of that sort.’

  ‘Tomb, corpse, jewellery, and all?’

  ‘Just that. And then, according to Olivia’s story, there was this swap. Joscelyn, who had put in half a lifetime messing around with the dead, was suddenly struck all of a heap by Edward’s all alive-oh Grecian girl. He offered Edward his Caucasian treasure – it really did amount to a treasure – in exchange for her.’ Lumb frowned. ‘The m-m-morals of these people were very bad.’

  ‘Clearly. And Edward agreed?’

  ‘Edward handed over the girl at once. But he didn’t get the treasure.’

  ‘You mean Joscelyn cheated?’

  ‘Olivia doesn’t know. Her old wives’ tale broke off there. But there seems to have been an awful row, and some sort of panic. Edward went abroad again in a hurry, leaving his wife and some children behind him, as he always did. He died of fever in Syracuse about a year later. And at about the same time Joscelyn appears just to have dropped his hobby. And now, Clout, you can see Olivia’s notion. She believes that Joscelyn hid the treasure and did Edward down. She believes that it can be found – that it may have been hastily buried in this very mausoleum – and that her branch of the family is entitled to it.’

  ‘But surely the law…’

  ‘She doesn’t bother about the law. If Joscelyn had the Grecian maid…’

  ‘Maid?’

  ‘Well – g-g-girl, if you like. If Joscelyn had her, then the Caucasian treasure was due in honour to Edward. Olivia’s out to get it. She put all this to me, and asked my help. It put me in a difficulty, as I’ve explained. Being employed by Sir John, I am, to a certain extent, in a position of trust. So I couldn’t give her any unqualified promise of help. Even, you know, if I hadn’t been working at New Hall, I’d have had to make reservations. Olivia’s a w-w-wonderful girl. But you mustn’t let a girl be silly. You must see that a girl t-t-toes the line.’

  ‘That’s so.’ Clout, although he managed to deliver himself of this agreement firmly, was again experiencing his nasty feeling of lurking awe in the presence of George Lumb. ‘So you simply promised not to give her away?’

  ‘Yes. I said I must leave my course of action undetermined until I had investigated the story myself. It was painful not to become Olivia’s ally, wholly and at once. But, the more m-m-marvellous the girl, the more essential it is to step off on the right f-f-foot.’

  ‘Of course. And have your own investigations come to anything?’

  Lumb looked at his watch and scrambled to his feet. ‘Nothing much. There aren’t many family papers, as far as I can discover, preserved at New Hall. But I have got a little further. Olivia’s story isn’t all moonshine.’ Lumb moved off towards the ivy by which they might climb out of the mausoleum. ‘Too late to do any real nosing about here now. We’ll come again. That is, if we’re going to c-c-collaborate. Do you think we are, Clout?’

  ‘No. I think we’re going to be rivals.’ Clout found no difficulty in saying this decidedly.

  ‘I see. Well, we must play fair. Which isn’t’ – Lumb gave his intelligent grin – ‘what Olivia calls playing fair. I’ll t-t-tell you what, Clout. When you come to New Hall, I’ll tell you all the rest of what I know. As I say, it isn’t much. And then we can see. You’re bound, after all, to get ahead of me on the whole thing, since you’re commissioned to go ahead, full-time, on Sir Joscelyn’s life.’

  Clout nodded. ‘Would you agree, Lumb, that it’s more my business than it is yours?’

  ‘Joscelyn and the treasure and so on: yes. But not Olivia. I m-m-met Olivia first.’

  ‘She was calling me Colin before she called you George.’

  ‘H-h-how long before, Clout?’

  ‘At least half an hour.’

  ‘I think’, Lumb said, ‘that with Olivia we’ll admit an equal interest, and st-t-tart all square.’

  Part Two

  New Hall

  1

  The autumn term, although not destined to be wholly uneventful, got going quietly enough. The new students assembled once more in the Great Hall, and listened to the Vice-Chancellor delivering his customary address: ‘Modern Universities and the Heritage of Greece.’ Were we justified, he asked them, in speaking of the Socratic equation of Virtue and Knowledge? They must often have wondered; but they should wonder again. He would stress the importance of wondering; it was something at which they should put in a a lot of time – and the professors and lecturers, let them remember, were there to help them do it. Perhaps, although they had often read the Protagoras, they had never gone on to the Meno? He earnestly advised them to do so. But, above all, let them remember that knowledge was truly knowledge only when it was followed absolutely for its own sake, without thought of practical consequences or worldly advantages. With that thought he would leave them.

  And at this the Vice-Chancellor went off to lunch, and the new students filed out. At the doors each was presented with a small pamphlet setting forth the various examinations they must pass if they were not to be deprived of the sundry State and County Scholarships on which for the next three or four years they must subsist.

  Thus prefaced, the familiar round began. Professor Gingrass gave the first of his twenty-four lectures on the Literature of the Victorian Age – a course famous for the mellow patina which it had taken on with time. Clout, closeted in his attic with the small group of students allotted to him, tackled the Higher Literary Forms with all the bright speed of the tyro, so that within a fortnight he had dispatched the Epic, got well launched on its successor the Heroic Poem, and was beginning to put in anxious hours peering ahead at Tragedy, Comedy, the Ode, the Lyric, the Essay, the Sermon, and anything else that might pass as sufficiently elevated. One of the men was awkwardly learned, and two of the girls were incipiently flirtatious – an inopportune circumstance, since the divine vision of Olivia Jory excluded all thought of other women from Clout’s mind.

  There was a further minor worry in the fact that Sadie Sackett was now discernibly estranged from him. And for this he had to thank George Lumb – or rather, what was really vexatious, a combination of George Lumb and a certain weak lack of forthrightness in himself. He had tried, with Sadie, to play down the extent of his own absorbed interest in Olivia; and he had also thought he had better not confide to her the extraordinary possibility that Sir Joscelyn Jory might have left a considerable treasure buried somewhere round about Old Hall. But Lumb, it appeared, had told Sadie the true state of the case – no doubt under some vow of secrecy – and at the same time had made a formal s
tatement of the manner in which his affections were now engaged. How much Sadie liked, or had liked, Lumb wasn’t clear to Clout. It was pretty clear that she didn’t at all like Olivia. But the result of this direct dealing of Lumb’s was that he and Sadie were now as thick as thieves. Lumb turned up pretty frequently at Old Hall, and the two of them would have lunch together in the refectory. Their air of serious conference for some reason annoyed Clout very much.

  Not that Lumb seemed at all flourishing or happy. Had Clout’s dealings with the Higher Literary Forms comprehended Neo-classical Drama, it might have occurred to him that here was a striking instance of the Corneillian hero, torn between inclination (or amour) and devoir (or loi). Passion prompted Lumb to second Olivia Jory in her proposal to locate and appropriate a substantial buried treasure. Conscience bade him refer the matter to his employer. In this painful dilemma even being a Great Brain didn’t apparently much help. Lumb’s perplexed cogitations found ease only in the society of Sadie, whose brain, Clout supposed, was just above decent average.

  Clout himself was in a position of some advantage. He hadn’t yet been presented to Sir John; and it didn’t seem to him that the University’s having turned him on to Sir Joscelyn for the purposes of the Shufflebotham in itself put him under any obligation to Sir Joscelyn’s great-grandson. If Sir Joscelyn had really played some dirty trick on his younger brother, hiding away substantial wealth that had become due to him, then Olivia was entitled to locate it and secure it for her branch of the family if she could. Or at least she was morally entitled so to do. Clout had no notion what the law would say about the ownership of a collection of jewellery carried off from an ancient Caucasian tomb. And he decided not to inquire. Mature consideration – or what he persuaded himself was that – had convinced him that it would be merely poor spirited not to back Olivia all-out.

  Unfortunately Olivia had faded away again. Her inspection of the mausoleum had perhaps made her feel that it gave no indication that any particular part of it might profitably be attacked with pick and spade. She had presumably gone off, for the time, on another line. Remembering her interest in the ice-house, Clout located it in the half-hope that he might there run into her. It appeared to be no more than a species of short tunnel dug into the side of a hill, with heavy wooden doors that were massively overgrown with briars and quite immovable. But a hundred years ago it had presumably been in working order, and quite a prominent object. No moderately intelligent man could then have thought of it as at all a cunning place in which to hide anything away. On the two or three occasions upon which Clout visited it there was, of course, no sign of Olivia. He formed a strong conviction – not on the strength of any ponderable evidence – that she was occupied in improving her at present slight acquaintance with her kinsmen at New Hall – while at the same time doing her best to subdue the conscience of the already amorously enthralled Lumb. This was a conjecture which might have been thought to establish Olivia decidedly in the character of an adventuress. But Clout found that he didn’t have to put in much time justifying to himself these devious courses in his beloved. He had got it firmly fixed up that her proceedings were highly romantic and enterprising. In fact he thought there had been nothing so good in that line since the maidens of Shakespeare’s mature comedies.

  It was desolating to be out of contact with her. And he still didn’t even so much as know her address. Of course he could find it now if he wanted to. The number of Jorys in either town or country was limited, and he could quite quickly be on her doorstep. But if he was to call – which he certainly hadn’t been invited to do – it would be nice to take, so to speak, a present with him. He must overtake and pass George Lumb in the pursuit of Jory family history. He must do more. He must try to locate the treasure. That, pin-pointed on a map, would be the really adequate gift to lay at Olivia’s feet.

  Reduced emotionally to this near-besotted condition, Clout didn’t, oddly enough, experience any diminution of his quite respectable intellectual capacities. Assisted by Gingrass, who proved surprisingly helpful, he got up the known history of the Jorys expeditiously and well. He would at least cut a respectable figure when presented to Sir John as the budding biographer of his distinguished forbear.

  Meanwhile it occurred to him one day to inspect what was called the Jory Collection. He had no great hopes of it. The University Librarian, an austerely scholarly young man not much older than himself, explained that it was no more than so much junk: small heaps of books abandoned here and there about the mansion when the Jorys had departed. He supposed that the University at the time of its humble beginnings, having received permission to hold on to these literary sweepings, had given them their impressive title while experiencing delusions of grandeur. No one ever went near the stuff. But no doubt it was incumbent on Clout, having undertaken the curious piece of research he had, to go and have a look. The Jory Collection was in the basement, in the small room next to the boiler.

  Clout took himself off without enthusiasm to the quarter indicated. If there was anything of the slightest significance, it was quite certain that Lumb and Sadie wouldn’t have missed out on it. Still, he had better stir the dust and see what was doing. The so-called Jory Collection ought at least to give some indication of the sorts of books and topics which the last of the Old Hall Jorys set particularly little store by. And no doubt that, in a way, made part of his research.

  He had no difficulty in finding the room he was looking for. The door was much blackened by fumes from the neighbouring heating-plant, but it was just possible to distinguish that the words Bibliothecula Joriana had once been inscribed in gilt letters on the lintel. This was the delusions of grandeur again. Clout turned the handle and shoved, expecting to find semi-darkness and solitude. But the small book-lined room was brilliantly lit by a single naked electric bulb. And at a table beneath this, absorbed in what appeared to be a manuscript catalogue, sat a middle-aged scholar.

  Clout was to be sure afterwards that there had been something instantly ominous about this encounter. It was certainly dis-concerting that the Jory Collection should be frequented at all. The middle-aged scholar had grey hair worn rather short; rimless glasses with a glint of gold at their sides; and a face of monotonous pallor, of which the chief feature was a mouth which might have been supplied by a single deft stroke of a knife. His clothes were good and quiet and loose and casual. He had a modest air of high distinction. Clout concluded that he came from either Princeton or Yale.

  The elderly scholar got to his feet – without fuss, but with as little hesitation as if Clout had been the lady of the manor. ‘How do you do, sir?’ he said. ‘My name is Milder. Milton Milder. Is it possible that I am speaking to Dr Clout?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Clout.’ Clout was a good deal staggered at being known. ‘But I’m not a Doctor.’

  The stranger received this disavowal with a slow benevolent nod. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘–of course. In my country most professors have at one time taken the Doctor’s degree. But it is different here.’ The stranger advanced with outstretched hand. ‘It is a privilege and pleasure to meet you, Professor Clout.’

  ‘Yes, of course. That is – I’m delighted.’ Clout found himself not at all good at coping with this formality. ‘Have you been here long?’

  ‘I have only just arrived.’ The stranger walked across the room, possessed himself of a second chair, brought it over to Clout, and with a courteous gesture invited him to sit down. ‘I have been lunching with your Vice-Chancellor. A learned and delightful man.’

  ‘Yes – isn’t he?’ Clout, aware that only the common forms prevented his instantly disputing both these epithets, sat down. He wondered if he should offer the man a cigarette.

  ‘He told me about your present research. I was extremely interested – and for a reason which I shall explain right now. He also introduced me to your colleague, Professor Gingrass. Mr Gingrass is a learned and delightful man.’

  ‘Yes – isn’t he?’ This time Clout was hardly aware
of disagreement. He suspected that colloquy with Professor Milder was insidiously hypnoidal in its effects.

  ‘And I believe Mr Gingrass is coming right along at this moment. I was honoured to meet him. He is a great authority on’ – for a fraction of a second Milder appeared to hesitate – ‘on his subject. It is a great stimulus to meet leaders in one’s own field. And to see something of the great English universities. Yours is a most interesting university. It is not one of the old universities, but it is most interesting. In England you have a great deal that is old. In the States we have little that is old.’ Professor Milder had sat down again, and his voice had taken on the soft purr of a well-oiled and perfectly adjusted machine. ‘We must remember that the Americas were not in fact colonized until the close of the sixteenth century. So we have no medieval architecture.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘In England alone you have almost a score of great cathedrals. Consider York.’

  ‘York? Yes – of course.’

  ‘The cathedral at York is known as the Minster. Some sixty miles to the north you have Durham. As an example of Romanesque architecture, Durham is excelled nowhere in Europe. Of the later Gothic style there is perhaps no finer instance than Salisbury. The spire is of particular note, and is celebrated in many of the canvases of John Constable.’ Professor Milder paused. ‘And so we come, by a natural transition, to an allied topic – the riches of English painting. Consider your National Gallery.’

  This time Clout merely nodded dumbly. It was clear that Professor Milder had evolved principles of discourse which approximated his conversation to the behaviour of bodies in outer space. Once launched, there was no reason at all why it should ever stop. One could almost feel, indeed, the presence of a physical law positively obliging it to go on for ever. From the National Gallery he would come, by a natural transition, to the allied topic of the National Debt – and after that it was anyone’s guess. Clout tried to let his mind wander, but the murmur of Professor Milder’s voice continued at once to lull and to compel his ear. He had known other learned men capable of the almost continuous enunciation of platitude. But their resources had been mostly in the sphere of received and approved opinions. What distinguished Milder’s performance was its pronouncedly factual slant. He was now simply enumerating the principal English portrait painters in chronological order. But he wasn’t doing this dispassionately. His words were so uttered that they carried the sense of a tremendous effort to soothe and compose. It struck Clout that Professor Milder might have been an ingeniously contrived robot, designed to be set at the bedside of incipiently maniacal patients in an asylum. Why he should be lurking here in the Jory Collection was a mystery. But Clout didn’t feel it to be a mystery to which any very absorbed interest could attach. Nobody could conceivably be interested in this man, or in his concerns. On the other hand, Milder couldn’t quite be treated like the traffic, or the neighbour’s wireless. When operating, he would always constitute part of the surface awareness of one’s mind. Clout, as he sat dumb before his new acquaintance, felt his eyelids growing heavy – but without hope that he would positively drop to sleep. Probably one sank into something like this condition when placed vis-à-vis Niagara Falls. When the door of the Jory Collection opened and Gingrass walked in, Clout turned to him as to a liberator. It wasn’t a kind of sentiment he had ever felt towards Gingrass before.