Old Hall, New Hall

by Michael Innes

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Jerry Jory said. Clout remarked, with strong disapproval, that the young man had permitted himself a cautious grin at Olivia.

  ‘In fact,’ Sir John pursued, ‘it looks to me as if it was all rather a poor show. Joscelyn after Edward’s girl, and Edward after this stuff Joscelyn had brought from the Caucasus. And the women-folk worried by it all, and having to put up with bounders about the place, and a lot of talk about mistresses and concubines. Concubines, in particular, is very offensive, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Professor Milder felt it proper to offer his support at this point. ‘I guess I certainly agree with that, Sir John,’ he said. ‘Yes, that is very correct – very correct, indeed. We must omit all consideration of this Mr Edward Jory, and what he chose to install in the Temple of Diana. I take no interest in that, myself – no interest whatever. But Sir Joscelyn is another matter – discreetly handled, of course.’

  ‘I can’t say I’m very clear that he is.’ Sir John shook his head doubtfully. ‘For one thing, the two brothers seem to have got themselves awkwardly mixed up together. I’m inclined to think we should drop it all. Honour of the family, and so forth. Not a thing one jaws about. Still, you know what I mean.’

  Dr Jory nodded. ‘I’m bound to say, Jory, that I have a good deal of sympathy with that point of view. Edward looks like being rather an embarrassing great-grandfather. But isn’t it a little late in the day just to knock off these investigations? Here’s Miss Sackett waiting to read another letter. And here are all these academic gentlemen, marshalled for you, it seems, by Professor Gingrass, eager for the ardours of research, the diffusion of knowledge, and all the rest of it. And somewhere, too, there may be that treasure. Have you weighed that? There’s no occasion to believe it a mere legend any longer. It’s taken on some solidity, if you ask me. Well, where is it?’

  ‘And whose is it?’ Olivia Jory asked this. ‘Aren’t we going to try to find out?’

  At this point something happened that Clout had been expecting for some time. Sir John Jory did really chew the tip of his moustache. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘We must consider that. If property is involved – family property, that is – the matter becomes very important. We were talking of treasure trove. Goes to the Crown, eh? But of course the Crown is only a manner of speaking. Doesn’t mean the Sovereign. Merely means the bally Government. Difficult to see why those blighters should get the whole of Joscelyn’s find.’

  ‘You mean, don’t you,’ Olivia asked, ‘the proceeds of Edward’s exchange with Joscelyn? On those terms, I quite agree.’

  Dr Jory frowned. ‘Don’t mind my girl,’ he said to his kinsman. ‘She does, you know, sometimes speak out of turn. Still, if there was a gentleman’s agreement between our respective great-grandfathers, I’ve no doubt, Jory, you’d recognize it.’

  Sir John gave some appearance of being cornered by this. Then inspiration came to him. ‘It’s all a bit deep, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘George Lumb here is the man to settle it, if you ask me.’

  ‘I don’t know much about Mr Lumb.’ Dr Jory, to the satisfaction of Clout, was unimpressed by this proposal to call upon the authority of the Great Brain. ‘I’d say one wants a lawyer, not a librarian.’

  ‘What do you mean – a librarian?’ Sir John was for a moment incensed, as if this description of the parson’s boy was grossly opprobrious. ‘Very old friend of ours, George Lumb – very old friend, indeed. Great reliance on him. Lad with judgement. George, I’ll thank you for your views on all this.’

  Thus formally appealed to, Lumb blushed in what Clout felt to be a foolish and pitiful fashion. It looked as if his stammer would be at its most uncontrollable. But in fact, when he spoke, it was without any difficulty at all. ‘Of course there was a lot of deception going on. One saw that – didn’t one? – as soon as one came to those M-M-Muscovites. So it’s very confused, and the truth is hard to arrive at. There’s one critical point, at which you’ll find that one brother is said to have been drunk, and the other sober. But it was a queer sort of sobriety. I mean, you know, that he was clearly in an odd state.’

  ‘Ah!’ Sir John was impressed. ‘Not responsible – eh?’

  ‘It’s arguable that Sir Joscelyn must have been a bit touched. And a gentleman’s agreement entered into by a madman is scarcely a thing another gentleman would insist on the honouring of.’ Lumb propounded this with much seriousness. ‘Drink, I think, is different. A gentleman is expected to stand by any commitment he makes while in liquor. Although it might depend, I suppose, on the extent to which other people’s interests were involved.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Sir John continued to receive this high doctrine with gravity. ‘Still, this doesn’t quite tell us where we are, my dear boy.’

  ‘We shan’t know that, sir, until we f-f-find the treasure. And Miss Sophia’s next letter doesn’t make it very clear that we ever shall.’

  ‘You see, Sophia cleared out.’ Sadie intervened with this explanation. ‘She got it into her head that something very dreadful might have happened–’

  Lumb nodded. ‘N-n-not surprisingly, considering that her brothers had bolted.’

  ‘And so, you see, the record just breaks off. Shall I go on to the last letter now?’

  Sir John nodded. ‘Yes, my dear. Please do.’

  8

  ‘Dear Miss Bird, – It is scarce twelve hours since I closed my last; yet all is now confusion at Old Hall! This very day must see the end of my visit to this the hitherto honoured home of my ancestors. And when I leave, I shall not be the first to go. For my brothers – such is the incredible truth – are both fled! Did I not express doubts as to their being courageous men? Alas and alas!

  But already (as I address myself to one who has so often calmed my childish perturbations) a proper resolution begins to return to me. I can at least review, and perhaps order, the final horrid events which have now taken place; and I can at least endeavour to compose my mind before the dread probability that there has been a dire termination to the affair!

  I resume, then, the broken thread of my narrative. It was indeed Sir James Dangerfield who had presented himself. There were several more arrivals, within the hour, and by dusk the supper-party was formed. My sister and I were, of course, resolved to hold ourselves invisible. But presently, as we sat together in the small drawing-room, we were entertained to an unexpected glimpse of the company. It must have been resolved that at a very early stage of the proposed convivialities there should be a solemn inspection of these exhibits upon which Sir James was to adjudicate; and to this end a procession formed, and passed along the terrace within our view. Sir James himself walked in front, with my brothers on either side of him; and it was patent that he took more satisfaction on the occasion than they did. A brief glance told me that Edward was both uneasy and sullen; no doubt he had received Mr Kent’s disturbing news – and was moreover in a continued displeasure that the wager should go forward at all, with its consequence of announcing to a large circle the potential accession of great wealth to Old Hall. Joscelyn for his part was silent and absorbed. Indeed, I almost persuaded myself that he was grown wasted and haggard, like a man consumed by fever. My note, it was to be supposed, had contributed to his unease.

  This distressing spectacle was with us only for a moment, and then the company disappeared round the corner of the terrace. They must have spent some twenty minutes in the coach-house. After that interval, we heard distant voices, and conjectured that they were moving on to the Temple of Diana. I do not think my sister at all fully understood what was going forward. It was my own endeavour to remove my mind from any contemplation of it. There was no reason alas! – to suppose that much regard for decency would attend the next of the necessary preliminaries to a settling of the wager.

  They were all back in the Hall more quickly than I should have expected; and from the dining-room there soon began to issue the common hubbub of gentlemen at their wine. It would have been reasonable that both my sister
and I should now retire for the night. But we doubted whether sleep would be easy to gain amid a clamour which only a bachelor establishment could have excused; and wakefulness seemed less insupportable in each other’s company than alone. It thus came about that we continued to sit together until near midnight. Sometimes the gentlemen entertained themselves with loud conversation, and sometimes with song. Once or twice we thought we detected high words, or even the beginnings of a brawl; and frequently, of course, there were shouted oaths, the crash or tinkle of breaking glass, and those view-halloos, tally-hos, gone-aways, and come-up-my-beauties by which the guests on such occasions endeavour to persuade themselves that they are about the most blissful of all human activities. There were, indeed, rare intervals of quiet, during which it might be possible to imagine the going forward of reasoned speech or serious debate. But on the whole it appeared a festivity conducting itself quite after the common fashion.

  It was already after midnight when I thought I twice heard the peal of a bell. Whether servants were yet in attendance I knew not; it was very possible that they had been dismissed – although, if so, they were like to be shouted from their beds later to carry one or another of the guests to his carriage. The second peal had been peremptory, as if some belated boon-companion of my brother’s were clamouring for admission at the closed front-door of the Hall. I was certainly not minded myself to act as porter to such a one; and a moment later the circumstance was erased from my mind by a fresh, and altogether disagreeable (indeed alarming) turn to the events of the night. The drawing-room doors burst open, and the greater part of the gentlemen tumbled in on us.

  It was an act, assuredly, of high impropriety; and I was glad to find even the complacent Lady Jory instantly sensible of the fact. She rose at once, and I saw her glance seeking for her husband in the crush; it was plain that she was going to make a peremptory request that he and his friends withdraw. But before my sister could speak, Sir James Dangerfield advanced, raised both arms for a silence which was instantly accorded him, and commenced a speech with drunken solemnity. Witnesses, he said, were wanted – sober witnesses, whose subsequent testimony could be relied on. It was for this reason that he and his friends had ventured, even at this late hour, to pay their respects to the ladies. A bargain – an unexpected bargain – had been struck between their host and his truly amiable and gallant brother. As to the wager, it could be taken no further. Sir James professed himself unable to come to a determination on that point, and the brothers had shaken hands and agreed that it be void. Instead, there was this bargain; to wit, that there be an irrevocable exchange. What had been Joscelyn’s was now Edward’s and what had been Edward’s was now Joscelyn’s – this vastly to the content of either party. He, Sir James, did not profess to determine which of the Jorys came the winner from that market. He had no skill in what Joscelyn had brought home – and very little in what Edward had brought home, either. (Need I add, my dear Miss Bird, that at this sally all the gentlemen laughed uproariously?) But this he would say: that the exchange was boundlessly to the credit of each, as a sportsman and a gentleman. Here was the sort of conduct that showed the English country interest sound as a bell – and let any Whig dog there deny it! (Here, naturally, the applause redoubled itself.)

  To all this nonsense – indisputably the vain and empty product, I supposed, of hopeless inebriety – I had paid small attention, so far; for it was rather my concern to determine whether some of the gentlemen were so flown in wine that my sister and I might possibly be at the hazard of absolute insult. But now there was a disquieting development. My brothers were summoned by Sir James each in turn to advance and solemnly endorse the exchange that had been announced. Edward did so first, and I saw, with mortification but without surprise, that he was sadly intoxicated. He made the statement required of him. It then became Joscelyn’s turn – and he at once stepped forward and solemnly declared himself in the same sense. But, whereas Edward had been as drunk as a lord, Joscelyn was as sober as a judge! I was horrified – for only liquor, surely, could excuse any man’s engagement in all this low levity and open wickedness. Joscelyn, indeed, was not himself; he had the appearance of one at once alarmed and resolute; he spoke in the same high, strained voice that he had used at table earlier in the day.

  It seemed now to be agreed that the bargain had been ratified in high legal form, with Lady Jory and myself the court that had registered it. Some of the gentlemen began to bring in bottles, swearing that we should drink a toast to the amity of the brothers. Others, slightly recollected, endeavoured to restrain their companions from this crowning impertinence. Several sang senselessly in chorus. And one fell to shouting that they should now fetch in the other brace of ladies. I realized with contempt and loathing that he meant thus to designate Edward’s (now Joscelyn’s) hapless Paphian girl, and Joscelyn’s (now Edward’s) mummy (if that be the word for it) so sacrilegiously haled across Europe from the Caucasus. And at this some blackguard at the back, thinking to gain the credit of overgoing all in outrageous jesting, cried out, Yes, and let the four of them play a rubber together. There was a moment’s silence, followed by a blow, a crash, and an ugly curse – the last speaker having been felled instantly to the floor by one of the party whose breeding had not wholly deserted him. Upon this there might have succeeded a general mêlée, had a surprising diversion not at the very moment occurred. Once more the house bell pealed – and was this time accompanied by such a thunderous knocking that all were startled into a sudden silence. And upon this, again, no more than a questioning murmur had succeeded when a frightened man-servant ran into the room, looked wildly round for his master, and in a trembling voice announced, His Grace the Duke of Nesfield.

  I had not recovered from my own astonishment before I was aware that the Duke was among us, and bowing with his customary polite ease over the hand of Lady Jory. He did the same by myself – and I observed that he by no means forgot that additional shade of cordiality and respect so agreeable to an inconsiderable female of the family. He then turned to face the gentlemen. They stood dumbly at gaze before him. Neither Sir James Dangerfield nor any of the others thought (I remarked) to call into notice that here was the largest Whig dog in the country come to bark at them.

  Joscelyn’s sobriety now stood him in a moment’s good stead. He said a word to the servant, and with great dispatch a glass of wine was offered to the Duke on a salver. He took a quick sip and then thrust it impatiently aside – but a civility had been offered and accepted. I breathed a shade more easily for the credit of our house!

  It now became clear to most of the company – a little disintoxicated as they were by the appearance among them of so august a personage – that the Duke’s presenting himself at an hour so late had some motive other than courtesy. They therefore withdrew in tolerable order to the dining-room from which they had so unbecomingly issued in the first instance, leaving the Jorys as a family to discharge whatever business should be proposed to them. I judged, however, from certain snatches of talk that I caught from the retreating gentlemen, that they were not without a shrewd suspicion that the late luckless wager was about to unload some legacy of trouble upon Old Hall.

  And of this the Duke presently left us in no doubt. He had sent a message to Edward Jory, he declared; but his errand was now alike to one brother and the other – and it was one he was glad to carry through, even at the cost of this nocturnal exertion, out of old regard and friendship for our family. First, let us know that what he had bade his steward communicate earlier that day had been most seriously intended. There was a new tone at Court, to which Cabinet intended that respect should be paid, and a gentleman flying in the face of decorum might find himself repenting it. He himself had been brought up in other ways, and he had no thought of turning parson now. But he had been constrained thus to present himself out of the certain knowledge, gained only a few hours since, that there were those with the Queen’s commission making post-haste for Old Hall at this moment. Edward had better forthwith
disburden himself of that which he wot of, or he might find himself in the county gaol by dawn. What was worse, his name would infallibly go in the new Black Book – with what consequences he could guess at.

  At this dire prognostication I saw Edward go pale and tremble! That this same new Black Book is other than a legend – albeit a wholesome one – I am unconvinced. I have met no one that professes to know precisely who keeps it, or where. Nevertheless belief in it has of late gained notable currency among our country gentlemen, and the penalties attending incorporation in its pages appear to be all the more daunting for being decidedly vague. For some time (as I have already remarked) it has been observable that my brother Edward was not easy about his late exploit – and indeed, soberly considered, it has been an act of wild profligacy to which it is to be suspected that his friend Mr Kent had urged him against a certain caution and timidity which (despite his sadly unprincipled course of life) is indubitably inherent in his character. And now I could discern a cold sweat on Edward’s brow! He muttered that the Duke’s advice was kindly taken; that all these fools had best be sent packing ere the night was an hour older; and that he would reserve but Kent and one other, to help him do that which must be done.

  I was relieved by this speech of Edward’s, although I could not, indeed, admire it. It was rational, but it was scarcely spirited. Against all my better judgement, I would fain have heard something more befitting – if not the friend of corsairs and pirates – at least a Jory of Old Hall! And a like mingling of relief and humiliation now awaited me. Joscelyn in his turn became the subject of the Duke’s serious admonition, and he too was left in little doubt that the new Black Book yawned for him (if books, indeed, may be said to yawn as well as to occasion yawning). It seemed to me that of my two brothers the Duke of Nesfield preferred the younger. There was something dry in his manner as he remarked that, in the common judgement, there would be some distinction made between one who was led into irregular courses by beauty, and one who was led into these same courses by gems and gold. This was very fine. And yet (my dear Miss Bird) I could not altogether approve it. The distinction was unjust to Joscelyn, who had certainly possessed himself of his Caucasian treasure not for its intrinsic value, but because of its mortuary interest. Moreover I recalled, that, before this Court disfavour and the like was threatening, the Duke himself was known to have spoken of the whole wretched affair in terms of the most tolerant amusement!