Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [61]
“My brother-in-law,” I repeated in astonishment. Did she mean Mycroft? Could Marsh Hughenfort possibly have told his estranged wife about Mycroft Holmes?
“Mr Holmes,” she said. “Ah—I see. You are concerned that Marsh spoke too freely. I myself have had dealings with Mr Holmes’ organisation too, Mary, although in a minor role. Many of us were in a position to pass on information about the Kaiser’s army; I did so three or four times. Nothing more. And I do not speak of it where there are ears to hear.”
“Mycroft would be relieved to know that,” I told her, and allowed my mind to return to the incongruity of the impressive young soldier and his catastrophic end.
“Tell me, did Gabriel seem disturbed when you met him in Paris? Shell-shocked, perhaps?”
“It was just two days’ leave between getting out of hospital and returning to the Front, and he was a rather quiet young man meeting an aunt for the first time since he’d put on long trousers. He was hardly going to pour his heart out. Too, the Hughenforts all excel at self-control. I will say that I saw that kind of quiet in other soldiers, men who’d spent too long a time at the Front and were not far from the breaking point. Gabriel had only been in the trenches for a couple of months, but they’d been hellish months.”
Like the men with minor wounds who gave themselves over to death, I thought; strong men were shattered, weak men survived, with no knowing the why of either.
“What would you say to a meat pie down at the Green Man?” Iris asked me.
“I’d say that was a fine idea,” I answered.
The pie was mostly pheasant, the beer kept by a true craftsman, and we were well content when we left the small public house with the mythic name. We followed a hilltop path back that was every bit as ancient as stone circles and the Green Man, a prehistoric highway worn deep by the feet of folk with none of the foreign Roman passion for straight lines.
The grey cloud layer thinned as the sun neared the horizon. We dropped away from the ancient ridgeway to branch off in the direction of Justice Hall. A dip and a rise, a dip with the early stages of a stream and another rise, and just as we crested this last hill, the sun broke beneath the clouds. The wide valley was transformed into a place of vibrant colours and deep, perfect shadows; Justice Hall basked therein, like a cat on a warm ledge. The long curve of the Pond sparkled; a trio of black swans floated on the surface. It was not possible to pass on without stopping to admire.
After a minute, Iris said, “I wish I could simply hate the place and have done with it.”
“One cannot help equating beauty with goodness, and feeling the impulse to serve, can one?”
“The impulse takes a lot of killing,” she agreed, sounding grim. “Marsh told me once he’d documented forty-three violent deaths within these walls.”
“Forty-three? That seems a lot, even considering its age.”
“More than half of those were a massacre during the Civil War. The Armoury must have run ankle-deep with blood.”
“How did Gabriel feel about Justice Hall?” I wondered.
“He adored it. Funny, that, considering that he was born in Italy and spent his first years there. Every rock and blade of grass; he lived and breathed the place. Walked every inch of every farm, knew every tenant and his children by name.”
So much for the faint thought that I had played with, an agreeable fantasy of Gabriel’s faking his death and deserting, waiting in France to be restored to his family. Not if he lived for this house. Well, it hadn’t been much of a thought, anyway.
“He was engaged, before he enlisted, wasn’t he?”
“Not formally,” she said. “The girl was too young,