Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [17]
“He walked up the hill to tell me that Marsh was impressed by our skills, and that he might listen to us telling him to go back to Palestine.”
“So that is what Ali wants?”
“It sounded like it.”
“Should be a brief visit, then.”
So, our sojourn in the land of the gentry was to be a brief one. The thought cheered me considerably.
With the sun actually generating a trace of warmth, the motorcar’s bear-skin remained in hibernation. Alistair sat in the front beside Algernon, although there was none of the easy banter of the night before. Our host had also shed his colourful pull-over, although around his neck was draped a brilliant purple scarf with lemon-yellow fringes, topping the handsome grey suit he wore beneath a trim alpaca overcoat. Both of the latter garments were considerably newer in cut than the formal garb he’d worn to Sussex. On his head was an equally stylish soft felt hat, although he did not appear to have bothered having new shoes made during the four months he’d been in the country. His cheeks were smooth, his hair combed over the plaster, and from where I sat I could see his right leg jogging continuously up and down, the body’s attempt to release the tension that clenched his jaw and held his shoulders rigid. When threatened in Palestine, Ali had generally responded with a drawn knife; I couldn’t help speculating what the country house equivalent might be. Cutting insults at forty paces? Charades to the death?
We moved along the unmetalled road in the glorious autumnal morning, keeping straight when we reached the sign-post of the night before. “Justice Hall” was an interesting name for a ducal seat, I thought, and made a mental note to ask for an explanation.
The roads improved as we went on. Soon we were running alongside a stone wall far too high to see or even climb over; it went for what seemed like miles, high, secure, and blank. I was beginning to wonder if we were circling the estate rather than following one side when Algernon slowed and the wall dropped away towards a gate.
This was a very grand gate indeed, ornately worked iron hanging from twin stone pillars on which coats of arms melted into obscurity and atop which unidentifiable creatures perched. There was a snug, tidy lodge house at one side, from which a boy of about twelve scrambled, pulling on a cap as he ran, to throw himself hard against the weight of all that iron to get it open. He came to attention as we drove past, tugging briefly at his cap brim. Alistair raised a hand to him, but Algernon said loudly, “Thank you, young Tom,” receiving a gap-toothed grin in return.
The wide, straight drive that rose gently from the gate was flanked by fifty feet of close-cropped lawn on either side, behind which stood twin walls of vegetation—huge rhododendrons, for the most part; the entrance drive would be a pageant come spring. Taller trees, most of them deciduous, grew above the shrubs, to protect them from the summer sun.
We travelled steadily towards an open summit; as we neared the top, Alistair instructed Algernon, “Stop for a moment when we’ve cleared the hill.”
Obediently, the driver slowed, timing it so that as we reached the highest point we were nearly at a stop already. The bonnet tipped a fraction, and then Algy set the brake and turned off the engine.
Alistair climbed out; Holmes and I did not hesitate to join him at the front of the car. The view was, quite simply and literally, stunning.
As far as the eye could see, Paradise as a cultivated garden. A vast sweep of greensward, undulating with delicate dips and rises, dropping to the long curve of a lake with a glorious jet of fountain spouting to the heavens, the whole set with centuries-old trees as a ring is set with diamonds. It was far too perfect to be natural, but so achingly lovely that the eye did not care.
“One can say this for Capability Brown,” Holmes drawled. “He knew how to think on a grand scale.”
“Mostly Humphry Repton, actually,” Alistair told him. “Not that it matters, except down near the water.”
But the house; oh, the house.