Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [154]
Wire and papier-mâché palm trees now lined the drive; the pelicans of the fountain had somehow become ibises; crocodiles made of wood and rubber inhabited Justice Stream and its new forest of reeds and papyrus at the shallow beginning of the pond. Huge sheets of painted canvas had been suspended from the battlements, obscuring the house’s front façade with row after row of enlarged Egyptian tomb paintings. A trio of stuffed camels sheltered under the portico of the stable wing; an enormous cage, its wire cunningly disguised under vines, occupied the portico on the side of the kitchen block. A closer look at the cage revealed two depressed-looking apes huddling in one corner. The lawn and terraces had either been dug up or had temporary mounds of soil heaped on top, with the odd shovel and barrow sticking out of the caps of melting snow to indicate work in progress. Three men were working up at the roof-top, fixing what looked to be torches along the battlements. Down below, the big double doors of Justice now resembled the entrance to a royal tomb, guarded by two enormous stuffed crocodiles, rearing up on their hind feet and tails. Blood-curdling shrieks came from within, either some terrible human sacrifice or a flock of parrots.
I could only stand in awe near the newly ibised fountain, wondering that Justice Hall did not collapse in mortification.
Iris had either been looking out for me or happened to be passing near one of the few unobscured windows, because she came out of the tomb door, dressed in reassuringly normal trousers, and grinned at my slack-jawed state.
“Quite an effect, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Words fail me.”
“Wait ’til you see the Hall.”
“I don’t know that I’m strong enough.”
“Well, I shouldn’t recommend standing out here too long. Phillida’s animal man seems to have lost one of his crocodiles; it’s walking around loose, or crawling, or whatever it is crocodiles do.”
“Probably lurking under the bridge, hoping for a deer. Or one of the dogs.” Still, I thought I might go inside, away from concealing shrubbery. As we passed through the tomb-painted drapes, I asked, “Do you know if Phillida has asked any stray scholars of ancient Egyptian to this bean-feast?”
“Haven’t any idea.”
“It’s just, I believe that string of hieroglyphs there says something extraordinarily rude about the reader’s mother.”
Ogilby held the door for us, dressed, I was relieved to see, in his usual butler’s black formality. At least he had not had an Anubis mask placed on his head or been stripped down to the loin-cloth of Egyptian servants.
The Great Hall, on the other hand . . .
The cavernous stone expanse had undergone a complete metamorphosis; I was now standing within a vast tropical grotto, moist-aired and with no hint of an echo. Every corner was thick with head-high reeds and ponds filled with flowering water-lilies; the upper galley was a jungle of vines that neared the floor; every accessible surface was a riot of lapis, gold, carmine, and emerald scarabs, hieroglyphs, and lotus flowers. A family of disturbingly realistic mummies guarded the inner door. (They had to be papier-mâché; surely Phillida couldn’t have persuaded the British Museum . . . ?) Three parrots on high perches screamed their fury, frightening the ape a man was attempting to coax onto an artificial tree. A crew was moving half a dozen monumental statues into place, with a fifteen-foot-high cat-headed god the current object of their attentions. A flock of seven flying ibises had been suspended from the dome. One of their stuffed companions had settled onto the outstretched arm of the classical athlete.
It was absolutely breathtaking.
“How on earth did she do this?” I wondered aloud. “Look—those lotus are actually blooming. Shouldn’t they be dormant this time of year?”
“Some of them are silk—all the vines are—but she did have two or three dozen pots forced in a hot-house. And Marsh wouldn’t let her paint directly onto the marble, so all the columns are covered in canvas.”
“It’s even warm in