gods.
Justice Hall was the most self-centred house I had ever seen. My heart went out to the man at my side: If Justice Hall wanted Mahmoud, I did not believe Ali had a chance.
As if he had read the thought on the side of my face, Alistair made a small sound, a grunt of disgust, or perhaps of despair.
“You see?” he said.
I do not know why it took me so long to consider that Alistair’s motives in seeking us out might not be purely philanthropic, but it was only at that moment that I perceived the stain of jealousy beneath his philadelphic goals.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe we will find that Marsh Hughenfort actually wanted to come home. Perhaps his eyes viewed the panorama before us with all the love and devotion of his Norman ancestors. His blood and bones, after all, were bred here; more than eight centuries of his people had devoted their lives to holding the land against all comers. Mahmoud must be nearing fifty, the time when a man’s eyes might well begin to tire of the dry, grey, comfortless, and infinitely treacherous desert and to seek the relief of green hills and childhood shapes. Perhaps Justice Hall’s seventh Duke had chosen to come home from the wars, to die as an old man in the bed where he had been born.
With that, I was no longer so sure of the coming discussion with the man I had called Mahmoud Hazr. I was bound by loyalty, without question; but there were two of my brothers here, and what suited the one might not, I now saw, suit the other.
Silent and thoughtful, I followed Holmes into the back of the motorcar, to continue our short journey into the glittering heart of perfection.
CHAPTER FIVE
The drive up from the main road had been perfectly straight, but once the summit was reached, its path began to curve with the contour of the hillside, less from necessity, since the descent was a gradual one, than to present a more dramatic approach. The track curved at the base of the hill, then dropped a fraction, so that for the last half mile one not only faced the house straight on, but felt as if the house lay above. I could not help speculating on the quantity of soil Humphry Repton had caused to be moved in order to create that subtly humbling approach.
As it was, Justice Hall waited foursquare at the head of her drive, occupying her terraces with the patient air of a queen awaiting obeisance. A wide bridge crossed the artificial lake that separated the house from the world outside the gates; as we drove over it, I happened to glance up at the roof line. A flag flew above the front portico, and below its gently undulating colours stood a figure, nearly hidden by the crenellations. A man, I thought, briefly glimpsed, and then we were circling around and coming to a halt before the house.
One clear indicator of an establishment’s degree of affluence, in 1923 as in 1723, was the number of unnecessary individuals it maintained. Messengers and footmen, rendered all but superfluous by modern methods of communication and transport, were nonetheless kept on by the grandest houses, for show more than any actual convenience they might provide. So I was curious to see how many persons would be required to recognise our arrival.
Two, it seemed (in addition to young Tom at the entrance gates). Before I could make a move towards the car door, it opened, held for me by a rigid-spined young man who stared off with proper fixity at the distant hillside. On the other side of the car an older man in a formal cutaway coat was aiding Alistair and Holmes. Alistair greeted him as Ogilby; this would be the butler.
When I was safely freed from the motorcar, I half expected the discreet young man to climb into the motor and direct Algernon in an entire circuit of the house in order to off-load our bags at the service entrance, but instead Algernon merely handed them over, and the footman disappeared promptly in the direction of the house.
While Alistair was telling Algernon that he’d ring to Badger Old Place when he wanted to go home, I looked over the top of the motorcar at the ornate fountain that formed the centre of the circle. It had not yet been drained for the winter, and the low sun collected in a million diamonds, the water playing and dripping off the bronze figures. Pelicans, I saw, and nearly laughed aloud at the unlikely frieze of beaks and outstretched wings that intertwined and emitted jets of water into the bronze sea-cliffs at their base. I did not think I had ever seen such an ornate fountain incorporating such whimsy. Certainly it did not have much in common with the immense dignity of the house itself.
A throat cleared, and I tore my eyes away from the Baroque splendour to join Holmes. We made our scrupulously escorted way up the seven wide steps of a brief but psychologically distancing terrace. A vestigial portico sheltered us; an ornate door swung wide of its carven stone surrounds; Justice Hall permitted us entrance.
Just inside the door, some surprisingly indulgent past master had built a small vestibule for the guardian of the door. The butler even had some heat source, the brush of warmth on my face informed me, and I could see a chair and foot-stool accompanying the more usual front-door implements of waiting umbrellas, a house telephone, and the all-essential silver salver for accepting the cards of callers. Once past this private oasis of comfort, the interior hall was freezing cold, but as unremittingly impressive as any duke could have asked—or many kings, for that matter. A hundred visitors might collect beneath that frescoed dome, under those arched colonnades, among those acres of echoing marble both real and faux; the grandeur would still dwarf them all. Three guests, a butler, and the house-maid receiving our outer garments made for a human element that was insignificant indeed.
I told the maid that I would keep my coat, thank you. She bobbed her response and went away with the garments of Alistair and Holmes over her arm. The butler admitted he would have to enquire as to His Grace’s whereabouts, and suggested that we follow him into the drawing room, but Alistair said we would wait in the Great Hall. Ogilby too slipped away, leaving Alistair to pick up a copy of
I had seen grander entrance halls—huge halls, halls whose every inch was encrusted with gilt and mirrors, halls dizzying with the sheer accumulation of beauty—but I had never known a room with a stronger sense of what I can only term
It took a while for me to decide what the fresco on the dome depicted. Normally such paintings are either of battles—the ceiling at Blenheim, for example, created for the Duke of Marlborough to commemorate his victory at the battle of that name—or allegorical, with classical gods and illustrated stories. This one showed robed figures reclining at a feast, with dancers playing tambourines and musicians with harps and a variety of unlikely-looking woodwinds in the background. A cluster of remarkably serious greybeards stood to one side, looking for all the world like barristers discussing their briefs. Farther around the dome’s circle, a wood sprang up, with birds and wild animals decorating the dark and gnarled trees, and a single man, running from a tawny creature that I thought might represent a lion. The man was making for a small hut, looking back over his shoulder at the lion and thus not noticing the bear (this animal quite realistic) standing at the corner of the hut, nor the snake dangling from the eaves.
The combination of animals was unexpected in this setting, but as soon as I saw them I knew what the painter was illustrating—and indeed, in the remaining space of the dome’s bowl, in what I knew would be the
