“Hello,” said Dora.
Toby’s companion said. “Well met! I do wish we’d known who you were. I’m afraid we quite left you out of the conversation! We travelled up with your wife, but we didn’t realize it was her.”
“May I introduce,” said Paul. “James Tayper Pace. And this is Toby Gashe. I’ve got your name right, I hope? My wife.”
They stood in a group together in the sun, their shadows intermingled. The other travellers had gone.
“So very glad to meet you!” said James Tayper Pace.
“Hello,” said Dora.
“Where’s your luggage?” said Paul.
“My God!” said Dora. Her mouth flew open. She had left the suitcase on the train.
“You left it on the train?” said Paul.
Dora nodded dumbly.
“Typical, my dear,” said Paul. “Now let’s go to the car.” He stopped. “Was my notebook in it?”
“Yes,” said Dora. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“You’ll get it back,” said James. “Folk are honest.”
“That’s not my experience,” said Paul. His face was harshly closed. “Now come along. Why are you holding your hands like that?” he said to Dora. “Are you praying, or what?”
Dora had forgotten about the butterfly. She opened her hands now, holding the wrists together and opening the palms like a flower. The brilliantly coloured butterfly emerged. It circled round them for a moment and then fluttered across the sunlit platform and flew away into the distance. There was a moment’s surprised silence.
“You are full of novelties,” said Paul.
They followed him in the direction of the exit.
CHAPTER 2
THE Land-Rover, driven fast by Paul, sped along a green lane. The hedges, rotund with dusty foliage, bulged over the edge of the road and brushed the vehicle as it passed.
“I hope you’re comfortable there in front, Mrs Greenfield,” said James Tayper Pace. “I’m afraid this is not our most comfortable car.”
“I’m fine,” said Dora. She glanced round and saw James smiling, hunched up and looking very big in the back of the Land-Rover. She could not see Toby, who was directly behind her. She was still completely stunned at having left Paul’s notebook on the train. And his special Italian sun hat. She dared not look at Paul.
“I tried to get the Hillman Minx,” said Paul, “but his Lordship still hasn’t mended it.”
There was silence.
“The train was punctual for once,” said James. “We should be just in time for Compline.”
The road was in shade and the late sun touched the great golden yellow shoulders of the elm trees, leaving the rest in a dark green shadow. Dora shook herself and tried to look at the scene. She saw it with the amazement of the habitual town-dweller to whom the countryside looks always a little unreal, too luxuriant and too sculptured and too green. She thought of far away London, and the friendly dirt and noise of the King’s Road on a summer evening, when the doors of the pubs stand wide to the pavement. She shivered and drew her feet up beside her on the seat for company. Soon she would have to face all those strangers; and after that she would have to face Paul. She wished they might never arrive.
“Nearly there now,” said James. “That’s the wall of the estate we’re just coming to. We follow it for about a mile before we reach the gates.”
An enormous stone wall appeared on the right of the car. Dora looked away to the left. The hedge ended, and she saw across a golden stubble field to a feathery copse. Beyond was a shallow blue line of distant hills. She felt it was her last glimpse of the outside world.
“There’s a fine view of the house when we turn in,”said James. “Can you see all right from where you are, Toby?”
“Very well, thanks,” came Toby’s voice from just behind Dora’s head.
The Land-Rover slowed down. The gates appear to be shut,” said Paul. “I left them open, but someone has obligingly shut them.” He stopped the car beside the wall, its wheels deep in the grass, and hooted the horn twice. Dora could see two immense globe-surmounted pillars and tall iron gates a little further on in the wall.
“Don’t hoot,” said James. “Toby will open the gates.”
“Oh, yes!” said Toby, scrabbling hastily to get out of the car.
As he busied himself with the gates, lifting the huge pin out of its hole in the concrete, two sheets of newspaper blew out of the drive, one wrapping itself round his legs, and the other rearing and cavorting across the road. Paul, whose glance remained sternly ahead, not turning toward Dora, said, “I wish Brother Nicholas could be persuaded to make the place look less like a slum.”
James was silent. Toby returned and jumped in. Paul swung the car wide into the road and round at right angles into the drive. Dora saw that there was a little stone-built Lodge cottage on the left as they came in. The door stood open and another sheet of newspaper was in process of making its escape. A dog began to bark somewhere inside. A further movement caught her eye and she turned round to see that a thick-set man with long straggling dark hair had emerged from the door and was looking after the car. James was turning round too. Paul, looking into the driving mirror, said“Well, well.”
Dora turned back to the front and gave a gasp of surprise. A large house faced them, from a considerable distance away, down an avenue of trees. The avenue was dark, but the house stood beyond it with the declining sun slanting across its front. It was a very pale grey, and with a colourless sky of evening light behind it, it had the washed brilliance of a print. In the centre of the facade a high pediment supported by four pillars rose over the line of the roof. A green copper dome curved above. At the first floor level the pillars ended at a balustrade, and from there a pair of stone staircases swept in two great curves to the ground.
“That’s Imber Court,” said James. “It’s very fine, isn’t it? Can you see, Toby?”
“Palladian,” said Paul.
“Yes,” said Dora. It was their first exchange since the railway station.
“That’s where we live,” said James. “Us straight ahead, and them away to the left. The drive doesn’t go right on to the house, of course. The lake lies in between. You’ll see it in a moment. Over there you’ll get a glimpse of the Abbey wall. The Abbey itself is quite hidden in trees. The tower can be seen from our side of the lake, but you can’t see anything from here, except in winter.”
Dora and Toby looked to the left and saw distantly between tree trunks a high wall, like the one which skirted the road. As they looked the car turned away to the right, following the drive, and a stretch of water came into view.
“I didn’t realize the Abbey would be so close,” said Toby. “Oh look, there’s the lake! Can one swim in it?”
“One can if one doesn’t mind the mud!” said James.“It’s not very safe in parts, actually, because of the weeds. Better get Michael to advise you, he’s the lake expert.”
The Land-Rover was running along now close to the water, which beyond a marshy area of bulrushes was smooth and glossy, refining the last colours of the day into a pale enamel. Dora saw that it was an immense lake. Looking back along the length of it she dimly saw what must be the Abbey wall at the far end. From here Imber Court was hidden by trees. The lake was narrowing to a point, and the car began to swing back to the left. Paul slowed it down to walking pace and passed gingerly over a wooden bridge which clattered under the wheels.
“The lake is fed by three little rivers,” said James, “which come into it at this end. Then there’s one river leading out at the other end. Well, hardly a river, it seeps away through the marsh, actually.”
The Land-Rover clattered very slowly over a second bridge. Dora looked down and saw the stream, glittering green and weedy, through the slats of the bridge.
“You can’t see the far end of the lake from here,”said James, “because it turns round to the other side of the house. The lake is shaped like an L, an L upside down from here, of course. The house is in the crook of the L.”
They passed over the third bridge. The Land-Rover was turning to the left again, and Dora began to look for the house. It was immediately visible, presenting its side view to them, a rectangle of grey stone with three rows of
