Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [47]
He sounded more matter-of-fact than wistful, and I had to remind myself that to a man whose chosen way of life was that of a scribe, and beneath that a spy, who lived in a tent with neither dependent nor permanent fixtures, Justice Hall might not be an object of adoration.
“We did not get to the chapel,” Alistair told him.
“Oh, we must show Mary the chapel. People come from Scandinavia and the Balkans just to see the chapel. And—what’s the time?”
Alistair made a show of pulling a watch from his pocket and popping it open. “It’s just gone eleven.”
“Dare we risk the kitchen? Oh, I think we must.”
“We could go by way of the Armoury, put on a bit of chain mail first. Mary might fit into Long Tim’s suit of armour.”
They were joking, by God, like a pair of idiot schoolboys. Marsh’s frivolity was somewhat forced, either from disinclination or hangover, but he was trying hard to act the mischief-maker—and making not a bad go of it. It was the first sign of life I’d seen in him, and I did not know if I should rejoice, or fear that the summoning of good cheer was just one more kind of sacrificial blood-letting.
“It would take too long,” Marsh told Alistair. “We’ll have to chance it. Have you been shriven, Mary—or whatever Jewish girls do to meet their Maker?”
“This sounds quite alarming,” I told him.
“Mrs Butter in a rage is a sight to behold.”
“The War would have been over in months if Mrs Butter had been willing to cross the Channel,” Alistair assured me. “As it was, the government held her in reserve as their secret weapon, should the Kaiser reach Dover.”
We passed the offices, where a man (Mr Ringle) was shouting down the telephone about a disputed bill, then entered the Hall, heading for the old, western wing. Marsh paused, and asked me, “Are you acquainted with Vetruvius?”
I gazed blankly for a moment at the nearest object, the marble bust of a handsome young rake with a plaque attributing it to Christopher Hewetson. “Vetruvius. Classical writer? Architecture?”
“‘Aedium compositio constat ex symmetria, cuius rationem diligentissime architecti tenere debent,’ ” Marsh intoned. “‘The composition of temples is based upon symmetry, the principles of which architects must most diligently master.’ The first Duke seems to have picked the idea up on his travels—he himself was probably as illiterate as his son later was—and instructed his builder to emulate it.” Among other things I tended to forget—that Marsh Hughenfort had absorbed a Cambridge undergraduate degree.
As we strode through the gorgeous marble cavern, Marsh’s voice playing among the upper gallery and rising to join the figures inhabiting the dome, our private world was suddenly shattered by the sounds of scurrying feet and urgent conversation.
Startled and unable at first to tell where the reverberations originated, I swivelled my head around, searching for the source of the noises, until the footsteps cleared the end of the upper gallery and became localised: Phillida and Sidney Darling, flying down the stairs in a confusion of garments and snatched phrases. I had thought them long gone—they had not come to breakfast and Alistair had said they were in London for the day—but clearly I was mistaken. Words tumbled down the staircase and we held ourselves back so as not to be flattened.
Sidney was clutching a telegram flimsy; Phillida was trying to settle her hat as she descended, half-listening to Sidney.
“—don’t know why they think the march is still necessary, the police will be waiting for them and they won’t hesitate to shoot, not with the way things are.”
“Perhaps Ludendorff will talk him out of it.”
“Not bloody likely,